A GLOWING PROPHECY.
On February 19, 1888, before ever a drill had been started in the Niagara tunnel, and before the project had attracted much attention, the New York Times uttered this glowing prophecy for Buffalo:
“Every furrow turned on Dakota’s plains, almost every blow struck with keen-edged axes in the forests that stand on the rugged Lake Superior region; the ceaseless hammering of compressed-air drills in Lake Vermillion iron mines; the work of thousands of Pennsylvania coal miners--in short, almost every blow struck in primary productive industry in the region tributary to the lakes adds to the prosperity of Buffalo.... This region has proved to be the most productive of freight of all the lake regions, and the commerce of Lake Superior is still in its infancy.... Buffalo will inevitably become the greatest milling city on earth.”
LAFAYETTE SQUARE AND SOLDIERS’ MONUMENT
THE GREAT SCIENTIFIC PAPER’S VIEW OF IT.
The Scientific American, in its issue of March 5, 1892, contained an extremely interesting article on the work and intentions of the Niagara Falls Power Company. After speaking of the methods of construction, etc., the article says:
“It is now the expectation of the company to make its first large contract for the delivery of power at a distance from the Falls, with the city of Buffalo, 3,000 horse-power being required for the lighting of the city. The present cost of a steam horse-power in Buffalo is put at $35 per year, and the company offers to contract to furnish power on its grounds at the Falls according to the following scale: For 5,000 horse-power, $10 per horse-power; for 4,500, $10.50; for 4,000, $11; and so on down to 300 horse-power, for which there will be charged $21 per horse-power per annum, each power to be supplied for twenty-four hour days. It is evident, therefore, that if the cost of transmission be within present expectations, the company will be able to furnish power at Buffalo at a much lower price than it is at present to be had at, and for a far larger field of usefulness than the mere lighting of the city. According to the most successful of all the recent efforts in the way of practically transmitting power electrically for a considerable distance, only about twenty-five per cent. of the power was lost in transmitting it by wire a distance of 108 miles. This degree of success was attained at the recent Frankfort exposition.”
WHAT ERASTUS WIMAN SAYS.
That well-known and successful financier, Erastus Wiman, of New York, who is deeply interested in electrical enterprises, read a very able paper at the convention of the National Electric Light Association held in Buffalo in February, 1892. In his paper he devoted considerable attention to the Niagara Falls tunnel scheme, and among other things he said: