Industrial Niagara 



It was Mr. Thomas Evershed, an American civil engineer, 1896 

 who unfolded the plan of diverting part of the stream at a con- arhn 

 siderable distance above the fails, so that no natural beauty 

 would be interfered with, while an enormous amount of power 

 would be obtained with a very slight reduction in the volume of 

 the stream at the crest of the falls. . . 



The time honored plan in water-power utilisation has been to 

 string factories along a canal of considerable length, with but a 

 short tail race. At Niagara the plan now brought under notice is 

 that of a short canal with a very long tail race. The use of elec- 

 tricity for distributing the power allows the factories to be placed 

 away from the canal, and in any location that may appear 

 specially desirable or advantageous. 



The perfected and concentrated Evershed scheme comprises a 

 short surface canal 250 feet wide at its mouth, 1 Ya miles above 

 the falls, far beyond the outlying Three Sisters Islands, with an 

 intake inclined obliquely to the Niagara River. This canal 

 extends inwardly 1,700 feet, and has an average depth of some 

 \ 2 feet, thus holding water adequate to the development of about 

 1 00,000 horse-power. The mouth of the canal is 600 feet from 

 the shore line proper, and considerable work was necessary in its 

 protection and excavation. The bed is now of clay, and the side 

 walls are of solid masonry 1 7 feet high, 8 feet at the base, and 

 3 feet at the top. The northeastern side of the canal is occupied 

 by a power house, and is pierced by ten inlets guarded by sentinel 

 gates, each being the separate entrance to a wheel pit in the power 

 house, where the water is used and the power is secured. The 

 water as quickly as used is carried off by a tunnel to the Niagara 

 River again. 



The massive canal power house is a handsome building, 

 designed by Stanford White, and likely to stand until Niagara, 

 spendthrift fashion, has consumed its way backward, through its 

 own crumbling strata of shale and limestone, to the base of it. 

 This building is outwardly of hard limestone and inwardly of 

 enamel brick and ordinary brick coated with white enamel paint. 



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