a UTILIZATION OF WATER POWER AT NIAGARA FALLS. 



The plant for the Cliff Paper Co. was the fore-runner of the 

 present electrical power plant of the Hydraulic Co. As soon as 

 the company saw that electrical generation and transmission was 

 an assured success and that Niagara Falls was destined to become 

 one of the great electro chemical centers a line of pipe was laid 

 from the basin to the edge of the lower river and water under a 

 head of 210 feet thrown from a giant. nozzle or "Monitor" com- 

 menced to wash away the rock that for ages had fallen from the 

 bank above to the shores of the gorge below. A level strata near 

 the waters edge was cleared, the fallen boulders were used for 

 masonry and a power house 100 feet wide was built immediately 

 below the old mills, being located a short distance above the upper 

 steel arch bridge. To this power house water was led from the 

 basin above in a steel penstock 1 1 feet in diameter. Successive 

 additions have been made to this power house and two more pen- 

 stocks have been added, one 1 1 feet in diameter and one 8 feet in 

 diameter. The canal has been excavated to a width of 100 feet 

 and a depth Of 18 feet until it has a capacity of about 100,000 

 H. P. at a velocity of 4 feet per second. The power house below 

 the bank now contains the following turbine wheels, viz: — 3 of 

 1650 H. P. ; 1 of 1900 H. P. ; 4 of 2300 H. P. ; 1 of 2800 H. P. ; 

 and 5 of 2900 H. P. An exciter wheel of 250 H. P. is about to be 

 installed. Your attention is called to the fact that these wheels 

 operate under a head of 210 feet, one of the highest heads used in 

 the East on turbine wheels. Each wheel is of the outward flow 

 type with horizontal shafts. Water from the penstocks enters 

 steel receivers placed beneath the floor and thence to the wheels 

 through 60" pipes controlled by hydraulically operated gate valves. 

 The supply pipes enter the bottom of each wheel case at the center 

 and the water is discharged through two draft tubes, one on each 

 side. The level of the tail race into which the draft tubes dis- 

 charge is maintained several feet above the average level of the 

 lower river so that the wheels are said to work under a practically 

 constant head. Two dynamos are directly coupled to each wheel 

 4 of these being direct current machines and 24 alternating current 

 machines. Two 11,000 volt alternators and an exciter dynamo 

 will be installed' in April. The voltage of most of the dynamos is 

 very low, the current being transmitted to the top of the bank 

 only through copper and aluminum bars and cables. The plant 

 therefore presents at present no interesting problems in transmis- 

 sion of power, but the 1 r,ooo volt dynamos are for transmission of 

 power to the new factory district at the north end of the city of 

 Niagara Falls. 



