Niagara Falls 



1895 the names of Manchester, Lowell, Lawrence, Holyoke, Paterson, 

 Stetson Cohoes and Minneapolis, in the United States, would possess 



nothing like their present significance. 



In view of the obvious advantages offered by water-powers 

 such as these, Augustus Porter, one of the principal proprietors at 

 Niagara, in 1 842 proposed a considerable extension of the system 

 of canals or races then employed, and in January, 1847, in con- 

 nection with Peter Emslie, a civil engineer, he published a formal 

 plan, which became the subject of negotiations with Walter 

 Bryant and Caleb S. Woodhull, formerly Mayor of New York. 

 An agreement was finally reached with these gentlemen by which 

 they were to construct a canal, for which they were to receive a 

 right of way, 100 feet in width, together with a certain amount 

 of land at its terminus. After various interruptions, in 1 861 , their 

 successor, Horace H. Day, completed a canal, about 35 feet in 

 width, 8 feet in depth, and 4400 feet in length, by which the 

 water of the upper Niagara river was brought to a basin or 

 reservoir at the high bluff of the lower river, 214 feet above the 

 water below. Upon the margin of this basin have been con- 

 structed various mills, to whose wheels the water was conducted 

 from the canal and discharged by short tunnels through the bluff 

 into the river below, so that in 1885, about 10,000 horse-power, 

 substantially the available capacity of the canal, was in use. 



In that year there happened to be at Niagara an able and 

 experienced engineer, engaged in the State's service in laying out 

 a proposed reservation, just as nearly fifty years before he had 

 been there engaged in assisting the State Geological Survey of 

 Prof. James Hall, who, in his report on the Niagara river district 

 for 1843, specially mentions the services of Thomas Evershed. 

 During this very long interval. Mr. Evershed had been engaged 

 as a public engineer, usually upon the Erie canal in that vicinity, 

 and it was natural that he should be called upon to devise a 

 system for the development of hydraulic power from the river 

 with which his whole professional career had been associated, 

 his last great work being in connection with the effort to protect 



970 



