Industrial Niagara 



the power but to distribute it, and it makes Niagara, more than it 1896 

 ever was before, common property. After all is said and done, 

 very few people ever see the falls, and then only for a chance 

 holiday once in a lifetime; but now the useful energy of the 

 cataract is made cheaply and immediately available every day in 

 the year to hundreds and thousands, even millions of people, in an 

 endless variety of ways. 



We must not omit from our survey the Erie Canal, in the 

 revival and greater utilisation of which as an important highway 

 of commerce Niagara power is expected to play no mean part. 

 In competition with the steam railway, canals have suffered greatly 

 the last fifty years. In the United States, out of 4,468 miles of 

 canal built at a cost of £40,000,000 about one-half has been 

 abandoned and not much of the rest pays expenses. Yet the canals 

 have enormous carrying capacity, and a single boat will hold as 

 much as twenty freight cars. The New York State authorities 

 have agreed to conditions by which Niagara energy can be used 

 to propel the canal boats at the rate of £4 per horsepower 

 year. Where steamboat haulage for 242 tons of freight now 

 costs about 6|/2d. a boat mile, it is estimated that electric haul- 

 age will cost not to exceed SJ/^d., while with the energy from 

 Niagara at only £4 per horsepower per year it will cost much 

 less. Some two years ago the first attempt was made in the 

 United States on the Erie Canal with the canal boat " F. W. 

 Hawley," when the trolley system was used with the motor on the 

 boat as it is on an electric car, driving the propellor as if it were 

 the car wheels. Another plan is that of hauling the boat from 

 the towpath, and that is what is now being done with the electric 

 system of Mr. Richard Lamb on the Erie canal at Tonawanda, 

 near Niagara. Imagine an elevator shaft working lengthwise 

 instead of vertically. There is placed on poles a heavy fixed 

 cable on which the motor truck rests, and a lighter traction cable 

 is also strung that is taken up and paid out by a sheave as the 

 motor propels itself along and pulls the canal boat to which it is 

 attached. If the boats come from opposite directions they simply 



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