Niagara Falls 



1894 sight seem natural and best to deliver electrical power straight 

 Le Sueur f r0 m the power-house generators to their motors, seeing that this 

 could easily be done without much loss of voltage on the carrying 

 line ; and, on the other hand, for distant work, as at Buffalo and 

 Rochester, to use a high potential on the line with transformers 

 at the consuming end or at both ends. It has, however, been 

 decided not to thus take advantage of the mechanical subdivision 

 of the plant to use different types of generators for different kinds 

 of work, but to adopt as a standard one good form of machine 

 and use it throughout, at least until the plant is increased. 



Perhaps the most remarkable consequence of this step will be 

 that the Pittsburg Reduction Company, which manufactures 

 metallic aluminum by the action of electricity upon certain com- 

 pounds of that metal in a state of fusion, and which expects to 

 use some thousands of electrical horse power when established 

 at the falls, will receive it in the form of an alternating current, 

 which will be passed into an alternating-current motor driving a 

 direct-current, low-voltage generator furnishing at last the desired 

 electrolyzing current. It has seemed best to submit to this com- 

 plication of apparatus in order to gain the advantage of entire 

 uniformity and interchangeability of power units in the generating 

 plant. Of course, if the power company were to put in a direct- 

 current dynamo for the benefit of the Reduction Company, all 

 that would be necessary would be to send the current over a wire 

 straight to its work; and it seems remarkable, in view of the 

 thousands of horse power required, that the extra expense of a 

 motor and dynamo to transform this quantity appears preferable. 

 The electrical power unit which has been decided on after the 

 most exhaustive and presumably competent, expert examination 

 of the requirements of the situation, will be of a capacity for 

 continuous work of five thousand electrical horse power (or three 

 thousand seven hundred kilowatts), and will be directly con- 

 nected with a pair of turbines of similar power. All the gen- 

 erators will be mechanically identical in construction and have 

 parts interchangeable with each other. The advantage of this, 



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