Industrial Niagara 



these lines of shafting and were to receive their power by clutches 1904 

 connected to these shafts. 



Still another plan involved the construction of a network of 

 surface canals fed by a common intake from the upper Niagara 

 River. Factories were to be established along these canals and 

 take water from them for the operation of individual turbines; the 

 dead water to be discharged in branch tunnels connected to a 

 main trunk tunnel leading to the lower river. 



These plans now look grotesque, but twenty years ago or so 

 they were seriously considered by good engineers. They were 

 discarded largely for financial reasons, the systems showing low 

 efficiency and high cost of construction and maintenance. The 

 final solution of the problem by electrical methods is almost ideal 

 in its simplicity and efficiency as a means of transmitting the 

 energy of Niagara to the consumers. 



In the electrical distribution of Niagara power an essential 

 advantage has resulted which was not fully recognized at the 

 time of its first adoption. As the uses of this power have devel- 

 oped it has been found that not only was power wanted for 

 industrial purposes but primarily electric power. This is 

 especially true in the case of the electrochemical and electric 

 lighting applications. If pneumatic, hydraulic or mechanical 

 power had been supplied for use, it would have been necessary 

 for all the electrochemical plants to convert the power into elec- 

 tric current, before they could use it, with all the loss in power 

 which would result from this conversion. So also with the 

 electric lighting and electric railway applications, where power 

 is wanted in form of electric current. 



When the first power house at Niagara Falls was proposed 

 for a capacity of 50,000 horse power, with an ultimate tunnel 

 capacity of 100,000 horse-power, many people wondered how 

 it would be possible to dispose commercially of such a large 

 amount of electric power. 



1011 



