Niagara Falls 



1905 the canal or pipe line with a power house in the Niagara gorge 

 at the foot of the long line of escarpment that faces Lake Ontario, 

 the general problem is the same. Namely, to utilize more or less 

 of the total fall of about 327 feet made by the discharge of 

 Lake Erie before it reaches the Lake Ontario level. 



In order to render any great part of this fall effective at 

 water wheels, they must be located near the lower level. This 

 being so, a main distinction between the two general types of 

 development is that in one the hole or pit in which the wheels 

 are located must be excavated in existing rock, while in the 

 other type the work of excavation has been done by nature, either 

 in the Niagara Gorge or at the foot of the escarpment. 



Where the level at which the wheels are placed is a natural 

 one, the tailrace requires little or no excavation ; this is the case 

 in the Niagara Gorge, or at the foot of the escarpment. If 

 the wheel pit is excavated to a great depth, then the tailrace 

 takes the form of a long tunnel through the limestone or shale 

 that underlies the Niagara region. When the power house is 

 located in a natural depression like the gorge, or on the plain 

 at the foot of the escarpment, a channel must be excavated on a 

 pipe line laid near the natural ground level to bring water from 

 the upper river. 



Other things being equal, the location of the water wheels 

 and power house at some natural level, instead of in and partly 

 above an excavated pit, saves at the start most of the cost of 

 such a pit. In a given case the length of the water conduit, 

 whether canal, pipe line or tunnel, must be substantially the 

 same, but a canal or pipe line is quite sure to have a materially 

 lower cost than that for a tunnel of equal capacity. With a given 

 head of water on the wheels, the length of steel penstocks must 

 be about the same whether these wheels are in an excavated pit, 

 in the gorge, or at the foot of the escarpment. The pit with 

 wheels at the bottom and a power house at the top has the 

 further disadvantage that the length of shaft connecting each 



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