Niagara Fails 

 1894 done in Philadelphia. Certain of the fittings were French, and 



Le Sueur .1 o 



the governors owiss. 



One of the details in the power house is a traveling crane 

 capable of handling pieces weighing up to fifty tons, which com- 

 mands every portion of the floor of the building. The presence 

 of this piece of apparatus is of the greatest importance in the case 

 of anything going wrong with one of the generators or turbines. 

 With its assistance any portion of either of these ponderous pieces 

 of mechanism which may need repair can be moved with the 

 greatest expedition, and a spare interchangeable part put 

 in its place. Frequently in an installation of heavy machinery, 

 although perhaps much less ponderous than these in question, a 

 break occurs which may cause a shut-down of many hours, when, 

 if sufficiently powerful means of moving heavy parts were at 

 hand, the damaged piece could be replaced in a comparatively 

 short time. A traveling crane of this description, as most of our 

 readers are aware, consists of a long carriage having a pair of 

 rails on which runs the crane truck carrying the lifting machinery. 

 The long carriage, which is supported a suitable height above the 

 floor, stretches across the width of space to be commanded, and 

 itself has a sideway movement on several supporting rails which 

 run the length of the space to be operated over. Thus by a com- 

 bination of the two movements the crane truck commands the 

 whole floor. 



During the work of assembling the penstocks, wheel cases, 

 turbines, etc., at the wheel pit, a view of this great slot with its 

 contents was wonderfully impressive in giving an idea of the 

 vastness of the whole enterprise. The great depth of this long, 

 narrow pit, which made it impossible to see to the bottom except 

 with the assistance of lamps in the lower part, the mysterious- 

 looking pipes (the penstocks) rising vertically, new sections being 

 constantly added much in the same way that a stovepipe is put 

 together, except for the permanence given by the heavy riveted 

 seams, and the enormous power and flexibility of operation of 

 the immense traveling crane which rapidly conveyed in every 



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