Niagara Falls 



190S and a depth of 8 ft. This canal terminates in a basin near 

 the top of the Gorge with a water surface of 2 1 ft. above that 

 of the river below. Further development was arrested at this 

 time by the Civil War, and it was 1 870 before any of the great 

 power thus made available was utilized. About that time the 

 Gaskill gristmill was built at the lower end of the canal. This 

 mill appears to have been equipped with turbines of 100 hp 

 capacity under not less than 25 ft. head. In 1877 the canal 

 just mentioned and the river frontages at its upper and lower 

 ends were purchased by the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power 

 & Manufacturing Co. and Schoellkopf & Matthews began 

 the erection of a flour mill to utilize a part of the power in 

 the same year. This mill was located at the top of the cliff 

 near the lower end of the canal, was 64 x 1 26 ft. on the 

 ground in its main part, six stories in height, and was equipped 

 with two American turbine wheels with a combined capacity 

 of 900 hp under a head of 50 ft. Water was carried down 

 to these wheels through a boiler-iron pipe 9 ft. in diameter, 

 and this development had the highest head and the greatest 

 power capacity of any that had been made at Niagara Falls 

 up to that time. The original Gaskill mill, that of Schoellkopf 

 & Matthews nearby, and all those erected at the end of the 

 canal in question for about twenty years utilized the water 

 power by sinking wheel pits in the cliff and then excavating 

 a nearly horizontal tunnel from the bottom of each pit to 

 the face of the cliff in the Gorge. Turbine wheels were 

 located at the bottoms of these pits, the water from the canal 

 after passing through the wheels was discharged from the tunnels, 

 and a vertical shaft from each wheel delivered its power at the 

 top of the cliff. All of these wheel pits were excavated before 

 turbine wheels for heads of 100 ft. and over could be readily 

 procured, and the depths of the pits ranged approximately 

 between 25 and 90 ft. Water being thus discharged into the 

 Gorge high up on the face of the cliff, the greater part of the 



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