Niagara Falls 



1893 science of the twentieth century, in passing judgment upon the 

 methods and apparatus employed, while not failing to take into 

 consideration the difficulties and limitations imposed by the 

 boundaries of our present knowledge, will allow no excuse for 

 failure to find out and use the best means known to our age. 



It is, therefore, a source of profound gratification that, from 

 the outstart, the policy of the company has been characterized 

 by a breadth of view commensurate with the far-reaching 

 importance of the enterprise. The directors have allowed no 

 local or even national prejudice to bias their judgment. They 

 early threw the lists wide open and in the original competition 

 which they inaugurated, the international commission passed upon 

 no less than twenty-two plans covering practically the whole 

 known range of electric, hydraulic and pneumatic distribution of 

 power, and originating from places as far east as the city of 

 Buda-Pesth, and as far west as San Francisco. 



It must be gratifying to Americans that under these conditions 

 a system developed by an American company has been adopted, 

 but for the recent rapid advancement in engineering science which 

 has made this work possible, America is in no position to claim 

 exclusive credit, if she would. In the plans for the hydraulic 

 plant, Switzerland, the land of water powers, shows the way, 

 while in the design of the great electric generators, the most 

 powerful as yet produced, Great Britain is represented directly in 

 the excellent general form of construction adopted, which was 

 proposed by Prof. Geo. Forbes, and indirectly in the work of 

 Hopkinson, Kapp, Thompson, Mordey and others, whose careful 

 study of the principles underlying the construction of electrical 

 machinery has done much to make it possible to design a machine 

 so far beyond the range of actual experience, in full confidence 

 that the results predicted from theory would be realized in 

 practice. Perhaps no country is more largely or more creditably 

 represented in the great Niagara installation than Smiljan Lika, — 

 that sturdy little province on the Adriatic, which has honored 

 itself by producing Mr. Nikola Tesla, and were it possible to 



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