Niagara Falls 



1899 Description of the machinery and system of this plant, which " is laid 



out on more conservative lines than that of its neighbor up the river, and 

 is certainly subject to far lower fixed charges per kilowatt output." 



1899 RAFTER, GEORGE W. Water resources of the State of New York. 



Rafter Pt. 2. ( Water-supply and irrigation papers of the U. S. Geological sur- 



vey, No. 25. Wash.: 1899. Pp. 135-143.) 



A short discussion of the history of power development at Niagara Falls, 

 with special reference to the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manu- 

 facturing Company and the Niagara Falls Power Company. Illustrated 

 with views and diagrams. 



1899 WooDBRlDGE, J. E. The Niagara Falls power plant. (Elec. wld., 



Woodbridge Jan. 7, 1899. 33:3-15.) 



Gives a full description of the plant, — the superstructure, the wheel 

 pits, the hydraulic passages, the turbines, the oiling system, the governors, 

 the electrical generators, the switchboards, the exciters, the lines, the 

 transformers, and the loads. 



No better proof of the success of the original installation from 

 a mechanical and electrical standpoint can be offered than the 

 absence of any important changes in the recent additions. These 

 have been made, as the above description shows, with only detail 

 modifications, not for the purpose of rendering the whole installa- 

 tion uniform but solely because the original general plan was 

 found to be the best one. A consideration of the state of the 

 art at the time the main features of the original plant were settled, 

 namely, 1890 and 1891, will show the remarkable foresight of 

 the members of the original commission. Multiphase work was 

 absolutely unknown in this country; the only alternating-current 

 apparatus consisted of small single-phase belted machines, never 

 run in parallel and never running motors. There were no records 

 of experience from which to draw conclusions as to the relative 

 merits of two-phase or three-phase systems, as to the proper 

 frequency within limits of 10 to 100 cycles per second; there 

 was no available data on the difficulties to be anticipated with 

 high voltages other than that of the Lauffen-Frankfurt test 

 transmission which carried, comparatively speaking, a very small 



