Niagara Falls 



1896 The broad idea of the utilisation of Niagara is by no means 



new, for even as early as 1 725, while the thick woods of pine and 

 oak were still haunted by the stealthy redskin, a miniature saw- 

 mill was set up amid the roaring water. The first systematic effort 

 to harness Niagara was not made until nearly one hundred and 

 fifty years later, when the present hydraulic canal was dug and 

 the mills were set up which disfigure the banks just below the 

 stately falls. It was long obvious that even an enormous extension 

 of this surface canal system would not answer for the proper 

 utilisation of the illimitable energy contained in a vast stream of 

 such lofty fall as that of Niagara. 



Niagara is the point at which are discharged, through two 

 narrowing precipitous channels only 3,800 feet wide and 160 feet 

 high, the contents of 6,000 cubic miles of water, with a reservoir 

 area of 90,000 square miles draining 300,000 square miles of 

 territory. The ordinary overspill of this Atlantic set on edge has 

 been determined to be equal to about 275,000 cubic feet per 

 second, and the quantity passing is estimated as high as 1 00,000,- 

 000 tons of water per hour. 



Between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario there is a total 

 difference of level of 300 feet (fig. 1,), and the amount of 

 power represented by the water at the falls has been estimated 

 on different bases from 6,750,000, horsepower up to not less 

 than 16,800,000 horsepower, the latter being a rough calcula- 

 tion of Sir William Siemens, who, in 1 877, was the first to sug- 

 gest the use of electricity as the modern and feasible agent of 

 converting into useful power some of this majestic but squandered 

 energy. 



It may be noted that the water passing out at Niagara is 

 wonderfully pure and " soft," contrasting strongly, therefore, 

 with the other body of water, turbid and gritty that flows from 

 the north out through the banks of the Mississippi. The annual 

 recession of the American Fall, of 7J/2 inches, and of the Horse- 

 shoe, of 2.18 feet, would probably have been much greater had 



the water been less limpid. 



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976 



