Niagara Falls 



1911 must be made from the horse-power totals customarily given for 

 the Falls based upon average conditions of flow. Hence, reducing 

 our sixty-eight per cent by twenty per cent, we find that the 

 developed horse-power possibly available at the Falls will be 

 about fifty-five per cent, of the total theoretical horse-power esti- 

 mated for average conditions. 



It must not be forgotten, either, that it would never be possible 

 to use all the water of the river. The ice must go by way of the 

 Falls and not by way of the water-wheels. Just how much water 

 must be reserved to go over the Falls in order to prevent the ice 

 from lodging above the Falls and creating disastrous ice jam con- 

 ditions, would be difficult to state. Possibly the diversions of 

 water at present authorized may yet be found, when all is in 

 service, to encroach upon the limits of safety. 



Considered, therefore, in the most favorable light of the facts 

 just mentioned, and from the viewpoint of the amounts of power 

 obtained from present Niagara developments, all the mean low- 

 water discharge, with the 212 feet available at Niagara falls, 

 would give an estimated amount of about 2,765,000 H.P. 

 Canada's share of this would be 1 ,382,500 H.P. 



Let us, however, view the situation from another standpoint. 

 It has been ascertained by special investigations made of existing 

 Niagara plants by the United States Government, that it takes 

 about .075 of a cubic foot of water per second, to actually 

 develop one horse-power; even on this basis, the low-water dis- 

 charge of 168,700 cubic feet per second would yield at the Falls 

 about 2,250,000 H.P., of which Canada's share would be 

 1,125,000 H.P. Franchises have already been granted, and 

 plants partially completed, for the development on the Cana- 

 dian side of the river of about 450,000 H.P. In other words, 

 instead of " millions " of horse-power being available, as has 

 been sometimes stated, it appears that about half, and by all 

 odds the better half, of Canada's usable share of Niagara falls 

 power has already been placed under private control; and, 

 as just intimated above, circumstances attendant upon the use of 



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