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NIAGARA IN HARNESS

ARNESSING NIAGARA"-the phrase has

been a commonplace for a generation; but until very recently indeed it was nothing more than a phrase. Almost since the time when the Falls were first viewed by a white man the idea of utilizing their powers has been dreamed of. But until our own day-until the last decade-science had not shown a way in which the great current could be economically shackled. A few puny mill-wheels have indeed revolved for thirty years or so, but these were of no greater significance than the thousands of others driven by mountain streams or by the currents of ordinary rivers. But about a decade ago the engineering skill of the world was placed in commission, and to-day Niagara is fairly in harness.

If you have ever seen Niagara-and who has not seen it? you must have been struck with the metamorphosis that comes over the stream about half a mile above the falls. Above this point the river flows with a smooth sluggish current. Only fifteen feet have the waters sunk in their placid flowing since they left Lake Erie. But now in the course of half a mile they are pitched down more than two hundred feet. If you follow the stream toward this decline you shall see it

undergo a marvelous change. Of a sudden the placid waters seem to feel the beckoning of a new impulse. Caught with the witchery of a new motion, they go swirling ahead with unwonted lilt and plunge, calling out with ribald voices that come to the ear in an inchoate chorus of strident, high-pitched murmurings. Each wavelet seems eager to hurry on to the full fruition of the cataract. It lashes with angry foam each chance obstruction, and gurgles its disapproval in ever-changing measures. Even to the most thoughtless observer the mighty current thus unchained attests the sublimity of almost irresistible power. Could a mighty mill-wheel be adjusted in that dizzy current, what labors might it not perform? Five million tons of water rush down this decline each hour, we are told; and the force that thus goes to waste is as if three million unbridled horses exhausted their strength in ceaseless plunging. This estimate may be only a guess, but it matters not whether it be high or low; all estimates are futile, all comparisons inadequate to convey even a vague conception of the majesty of power with which the mighty waters rush on to their final plunge into the abysm.

It is here, you might well suppose, where the appalling force of the current is made so tangible, that man would place the fetters of his harness, making the madcap current subject to his will. You will perhaps more than half expect to see gigantic mechanisms of man's construction built out over the rapids or across the face of the cataract-so much has been said of æstheticism versus commercialism in connection with the attempt to utilize Niagara's power. But whatever

your fears in this regard, they will not be realized. Inspect the rapids and the falls as you may, you will see no evidence that man has tampered with their pristine freedom. Subtler means have been employed to tame the wild steed. The mad waves that go dashing down the rapids are as free and untrammeled to-day as they were when the wild Indian was the only witness of their tempestuous activity. Such portions of the current as reach the rapids have full license to pass on untrammeled, paying no toll to man. The water which is made to pay tribute is drawn from the stream up there above the rapids, where it lies placid and as yet unstirred by the beckoning incline. To see Niagara in harness, then, you must leave the cataract and the rapids and pass a full mile up the stream where the great river looks as calm as the Hudson or the Mississippi, and where, under ordinary conditions, not even the sound of the falls comes to your ear.

Prosaic enough it seems to observe here nothing more startling than a broad cul de sac of stagnant water, like the beginning of a broad canal, extending in for a few hundred yards only from the main stream; its waters silent, currentless, seemingly impotent. This stagnant pool, then, not the whirling current below, is to furnish the water whose reserve force of energy of position is drawn upon to serve man's greedy purpose. Coming from the rapids and cataract to this stagnant canal, you seem to step from the realm of poetic beauty to the sordid realities of the work-a-day world. Of a truth it would seem that "harnessing Niagara" is but a far-fetched metaphor.

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WITHIN THE POWER-HOUSE

And yet if you will turn aside from the canal and enter one of the long, low buildings that flank it on either side, you will soon be made to feel that the metaphor was amply justified. Little as there was exteriorly to suggest it, you are entering a fairyland of applied science, and within these plain walls you shall witness evidences of the ingenuity of man that should appeal scarcely less to your imagination than the sight of the cataract itself in all its sublimity of power.

For within these walls, by a miracle of modern science, the potential energy which resides in the water of the canal is transformed into an electrical current which is sent out over a network of wires to distant cities to perform a thousand necromantic tasks,-propelling a street car in one place, effecting chemical decompositions in another; turning the wheels of a factory here and lighting the streets of a city there; in short, subserving the practical needs of man in devious and wonderful ways.

Even as you gazed disdainfully at the stagnant canal, its waters, miraculously transformed, were propelling the trolley cars along the brink of the cliff over there on the Canadian shore, and at the same time were turn ing the wheels in many a factory in the distant city of Buffalo. After all, then, the quiet pool of water was not so prosaic as it seemed.

As you stand in the building where this wonderful transformation of power is effected, the noble simplicity of the vista heightens the mystery. The most significant

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VIEW IN ONE OF THE POWER HOUSES AT NIAGARA.

Each of the top-like dynamos generates 5000 horse-power.

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