Industrial Niagara 



That this situation is the finest in the world for developing 1894 

 mechanical power has long been realized, but the local demands 

 at Niagara were comparatively trifling, and only lately have our 

 facilities for transmitting power over distances become sufficiently 

 developed to warrant such an undertaking as is now in hand. 

 The power company does not, however, look entirely to distant 

 points for consumers of their output; on the contrary, a very large 

 amount will be used almost on the spot by manufactures which are 

 now moving to Niagara. The variety of purposes to which this 

 power will be put may be gathered from the fact that they are as 

 diverse as the manufacture of " mechanical " wood pulp and the 

 smelting of aluminum. 



There are already at the falls a few establishments using 

 power developed by turbines, and which have been quietly at 

 work for years. There is a canal known as the Hydraulic Canal 

 on the American side, skirting the city of Niagara Falls, and 

 terminating on the cliffs, half a mile below the cataract. There 

 are a number of mills here which, for the most part, however, 

 utilize only a fraction of the total fall available, probably for the 

 reason that when they were built there were not in existence the 

 high-grade water wheels suitable for great head that are on the 

 market to-day. 



People in general have the idea that the Niagara water power 

 is inexhaustible, and so it probably is, so far as human require- 

 ments go. There are, however, some tolerably close data on 

 which to figure the total horse power. The Lake Survey Board 

 and Mr. R. C. Reid, examining the matter independently, have 

 come to a very fair agreement in their conclusions on this point. 

 From their figures it would appear that the average flow is about 

 270,000 cubic feet per second, and this is almost exactly the 

 same as the almost unthinkable quantity of 1 ,000,000,000 pounds 

 per minute. A horse power of work is the equivalent of 33,000 

 foot pounds per minute, and as the weight above mentioned falls 

 161 feet, the horse power of the total is expressed as follows: 

 161X1 ,000,000,000 -*- 33,000 = close on five million. 

 60 945 



