“When we consider that the entire power going to waste at the Falls is one-seventh of the entire power of the world one can comprehend what an inexhaustible mine of wealth we are on the eve of developing. Already the problem of transmitting electricity long distances without much waste has been solved. Other companies are in the field, and before many years instead of 125,000 horse-power there will probably be a million. Buffalo being the nearest large city to the great cataract, it will be the first to receive the benefits.
“Just let your mind run forward a dozen years. Electricity running through cables from the Falls will act on our city like the warm blood running through a human body, will permeate every part of the city, running 2,000 horse-power engines as easily as the dentist’s drill or the family sewing machine. Every wheel in Buffalo will be eventually turned by electricity. It will light and heat our houses. It will be cheaper than anything else. The impetus that it will give our manufacturing enterprises will be incalculable.
“Add to all this our great natural advantages and no wonder our expectations should be great. We are midway between the great producing regions of the West and the more thickly populated sections of the East, with its continually increasing export trade. What better point could be found for the manufacturing centre of the country? Here all the shipping from the western chain of lakes discharges its cargoes of grain, lumber, ore, etc., reloading with up-cargoes of coal (and all the great coal-carrying transportation corporations have branches that now terminate in this city), laying at the door of the manufacturer the raw material at the lowest possible freight rate, with twenty-six lines of railroads leading from here in every direction (many of them trunk lines), with a canal and waterway to the seaboard giving the manufacturer the finest shipping facilities possible.
“Buffalo already boasts of the largest coal distributing point in the world, the largest sheep and fresh fish market in the world; one of the largest horse markets; the largest grain distributing point in the world; the second largest cattle market in the world; we are destined to be the largest flour milling city in the world, and with our suburban port of Tonawanda we have the largest lumber market in the world.
“In the last ten years we have increased our population 89 per cent., and with this new and wonderful factor that no other city in the world’s history has ever had, it is not a wild statement to make, but one that the present outlook would warrant, that Buffalo and not Chicago will be the second American city.”
ELECTRIC POWER ON THE CANADIAN SIDE.
Col. Albert D. Shaw, formerly U. S. Consul at Montreal, Canada, and later at Manchester, England, is at the head of a company which proposes to produce electricity on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. This company has secured the passage of a bill through the Ontario Parliament permitting the incorporation of a company with a capitalization of $3,000,000, and a privilege of bonding to the extent of $5,000,000, with the object of producing electricity by means of a tunnel upon the Canadian side.
In conversation with a writer for the Philadelphia Press, in April of this year, Col. Shaw said the Canadian company had not been organized to compete with the American company, but rather to supplement and act in concert with it. He explained that as the land on the Canadian side is devoted to park purposes, it cannot be used for the location of manufactories, and therefore the power produced must be transmitted to other points. In this connection he went on to say:
“Such power can certainly be carried to Buffalo. An electrical plant has been established about 16 miles from the city of Rome, N. Y., and the power there furnished is conveyed to Rome with perfectly satisfactory results. Buffalo is only a little more than 20 miles from Niagara, and with the higher voltage which can be obtained there is no doubt that city can be furnished with electric power sufficient to run all the manufactories of New York State were they located there. After our company is organized in harmony with the New York company we shall begin work, and I think can complete it within a year.”
“The water power furnished by the Niagara River above the Falls,” continued Col. Shaw, “is estimated to be equivalent to 3,000,000 horse-power. When we recollect that the Connecticut River at Holyoke only furnishes about 24,000 horse-power, and the river at Minneapolis only 18,000, some idea can be obtained of this enormous power which has hitherto been going to waste. The American company has built a tunnel 8,000 feet long. The entrance to it is a long distance above the Falls, and the exit where the waste water flows into the Niagara River is just below the suspension bridge. This tunnel is capable of furnishing power equivalent to 140,000 horse-power, an amount of power which vastly exceeds anything furnished anywhere else in the world. The Niagara River never runs dry. There never is an appreciable diminution in its body of water. Everywhere else where water power is used manufactories are compelled either to have a steam plant which can be relied upon in dry weather, or else to run the risk of shutting down for lack of power. That can never happen on the banks of the Niagara.”