Industrial Niagara 



interest. With the success of electrical generation and transmis- 1903 

 sion there commenced a new phase in the history of industrial an 

 Niagara and it is with this later form of power utilization that we 

 are concerned tonight. 



There is of course nothing new in the idea of utilizing 

 Niagara's energy. Every man of a mechanical turn of mind who 

 ever contemplated the resistless force of its falling water has been 

 impressed with the fact that vast industrial progress would result 

 from the diversion of even a small proportion of this power into 

 useful channels. Among those who many years ago felt the 

 mighty power of the falling waters and contemplated the results 

 of using it to produce useful mechanical power was the famous 

 Dr. Siemens, who in a lecture delivered in 1877 before the Iron 

 and Steel Institute of Great Britain referred to his impressions of 

 Niagara and stated that all the coal raised at that time throughout 

 the entire world would be required to produce energy equal to 

 that produced by the falls alone, without considering the force of 

 the rapids. This statement may have been somewhat exaggerated 

 but the following figures are believed to be accurate. The total 

 difference in level of Lakes Erie and Ontario is 328 feet. The 

 minimum flow in the Niagara River, as observed by the govern- 

 ment engineers is 1 78,000 cubic feet per second. The total 

 energy represented by this amount of water in passing from one 

 lake to the other therefore equals 6,635,000 H. P. or in pass- 

 ing from the upper river above the rapids to a point above 

 the lower rapids equals 4,380,000 H. P. But such figures 

 are like those representing the capital of the steel trust, (although 

 this is not entirely a " water " power) , or the distance to the 

 nearest fixed star — they convey but little meaning. But take, 

 as an example, the energy produced by a single cubic foot of 

 water per second in dropping from the upper river to a point 

 below the falls, which is 25 H. P. That does not seem a large 

 amount in these days of large numbers, but what does it repre- 

 sent? A force sufficient to raise a one pound weight 2Yl miles 

 in one second, to raise a large sized passenger locomotive to the 



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