Abstract
TO render the vast energy of the Niagara Falls available for use in the industrial world has been the dream of many an enterprising spirit who has watched the immense volume of water plunging over the precipice, only to expend its energy in transforming itself (or its equivalent) into an invisible vapour, to be carried by the winds over to the lakes supplying the Falls, and pass through the same cycle again. But till quite recently little has been attempted. For many years past a few mills on the eastern cliff of the Niagara Gorge, below the Falls, have used a certain amount of the power, now aggregating about 6000 horse-power, by conducting water from the river above the Falls through a canal, and using it to drive turbines placed so as to benefit from only 90 to 100 feet or less of the total fall available, the water discharging down the side of the gorge after it has done its work. In this way it may be said that a start has been made, but it is only within the last few years that the utilisation of the power has been undertaken in a bold spirit, and this has become possible by the recent developments in electrical science, which enable power to be transmitted to a distance economically on a commercial basis.
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The Falls of Niagara and its Water-Power. Nature 49, 482–486 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/049482a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049482a0