Industrial Niagara 



energy the generators were to be mounted at the tops of vertical 1905 

 shafts that rose from turbine wheels near the bottom of each pit. 

 The plan finally adopted included a surface canal 250 ft. wide 

 at its head on the river front, 1.25 miles above the American 

 Falls, 1 ,700 ft. long in a direction approximately at right angles 

 with the river, and 12 ft. deep. On either side of this canal a 

 wheel pit was to be excavated to a depth of 1 78 ft., and a tunnel 

 7,436 ft. long was to connect the bottoms of the pits with the 

 river, in the gorge below the Falls. The tunnel width was 1 8.82 

 ft., its height 21 ft., and its area in cross-section 386 sq. ft. 

 Ground was broken for this development on October 4, 1890, 

 and the first sale of electric energy was to the Pittsburg Reduction 

 Co. for the production of aluminum on August 26, 1895. The 

 canal and tunnel were designed for a capacity of 120,000 hp., at 

 the head of 136 ft. utilized in the first wheel pit. In the great 

 wheel pit and tunnel of 1895 may be seen an extension of the 

 plan followed in the hydraulic development for the Gaskill mill 

 more than twenty years earlier. Each plant included a canal to 

 bring the water from the upper river, a wheel pit with turbines 

 at the bottom, a vertical shaft rising from each wheel to the 

 ground level and a tunnel to discharge the tail water into the 

 gorge. In the later development, however, the tunnel is more 

 than a mile instead of only a few feet in length, the head in 1 36 

 ft. to 150 ft. instead of 25, and the capacity is 120,000 instead 

 of lOOhp. 



The plant of the Niagara Falls Power Company set the pat- 

 tern for electric stations with wheel pits and tunnels, and the 

 Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power & Manufacturing Co. by 

 locating its generating equipment at the foot of the cliff, in 1 895, 

 fixed a type for those who run pipes down into the Gorge 

 and connect them with horizontal turbine wheels for the opera- 

 tion of electric generators. Both of these examples on the 

 American side of Niagara River have been followed on the 

 Canadian bank. In Queen Victoria Park the generating plants 



1027 



