Bird's-eye View of the Canadian Rapids and Fall.
From a photograph by Notman, Montreal.
In 1885, the late Thomas Evershed, of Rochester, New York, devised a plan for wheel-pits a mile and a half above the Falls. The water was to be conducted to these pits by lateral canals, from which it was to be taken to the river below the Falls by means of a tunnel cut through the solid rock. This plan seemed more practicable than any proposed heretofore, and commanded the attention of many leading engineers of the country. The present great developments at the Falls had their inception in the organisation of the Niagara Falls Power Company. This company obtained a charter from the State of New York in 1886, giving them permission to use water sufficient to generate two hundred thousand horse-power. This company could accomplish very little on account of its limited capital. In a short time, however, New York capitalists and bankers, perceiving the practicability of the company's plans, became interested in the project, and furnished the necessary funds. The first earth was turned for this great work in October 1890 and the tunnel was completed in the autumn of 1893. The first main wheel-pit was ready for its machinery by the following March.
The device for applying Niagara's power to the turbines is on the same principle of construction, in each of the recently erected plants as in this first one. In the case of the Niagara Falls Power Company, a broad deep inlet leads from the river at a point a mile and a half above the American Falls, two thousand feet back in a north-easterly direction. The canal is protected by a lining of heavy masonry, which is pierced at its upper end by a number of gateways; through these water is admitted by short canals to pits emptying into huge steel pipes or penstocks, as they are called. These penstocks terminate at the bottom in wheel boxes, in which are placed the bronze turbine wheels, connected with the surface by means of steel shafts parallel to the penstocks. From the turbine wheels the water whirls and rushes on through a subterranean passage to the main tunnel. Here it starts on its long journey of over a mile under-ground, beneath the heart of the city, until it emerges again at an opening in the cliff just below what is known as the new suspension bridge. A very ingenious plan was adopted for the application of the power to the turbines. The penstocks are brought down under the wheels and are made to discharge their waters upward into the boxes. This contrivance causes the water to bear up the great weight of the wheels, from the bearings beneath for their support, besides that of the hundred and forty feet of shafting connected with the turbines for transmitting power to the surface.
The tunnel which receives these waters after leaving the turbines is no less than six thousand seven hundred feet long, and discharges below the Falls just past the suspension bridge. Its cross-section somewhat resembles a horseshoe in shape, and this sectional area is three hundred and eighty-six square feet throughout, the average height and width being twenty-one and sixteen feet respectively. The company owning the mills connected with this tunnel, together with the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company, of which mention has been made, are the only ones using water to any great extent on the American side.
On the Canadian side, three great canals are drawing water from the river. It is the construction of these mammoth Canadian power plants, and the devising of means for leading water to the turbines together with the development of a plan for the disposal of the waste water by means of some form of tail race, which must necessarily consist of a monster tunnel broken through the solid rock, which has developed some of the greatest and most unique engineering problems ever before dreamed of, and which has presented a work hazardous and spectacular in the extreme.
To meet the engineering problems concerned in locating the three Canadian plants along the shore of the river, involving the taking of water by some form of canal, and the disposal of waste water through tunnel or by other means to the lower river, each without interfering with any of the other plants, taxed even Yankee engineering ingenuity. One company had to unwater a considerable area of Niagara River at Tempest Point where the waters have a great depth and the current is of high velocity. From here then a tunnel, the largest in the world, must be broken through solid rock, under the bed of the river, to a point directly behind the great sheet of water plunging over the apex of the V formed by Horseshoe Falls. A second company takes its water through a short canal to its wheel-pits, which are sunk about half a mile above Horseshoe Falls in Queen Victoria Park, discharging it through a tunnel two thousand feet long into the lower river. To find room for the third of these companies was a puzzling problem for some time. Finally the difficulty was solved by a departure from the plan of the other companies, both in the manner of taking water from the river and in the location of the power-house. Instead of locating the wheel-pits above the Falls as in the case of the others, this company has it power-house located in the Gorge below the Falls along the lower level. It takes its water from farther up the river than any of the companies, thus being further removed from any difficulties arising from recession of the Falls besides obtaining the additional power to be given by the descent of the rapids to the crest of the cliff, which amounts to about fifty feet. The water is taken from near the Dufferin Islands through the largest steel conduit in the world, which runs not far from the shore of the river, skirting the other plants, and terminates at the power-house situated in the canyon below the Falls.
It is interesting to visit and survey these hydro-electric power-generating stations, to note the different methods for taking the water from the river and for carrying it to the lower river after having passed through turbine wheels. It is well here to take a brief résumé of the main features connected with the obtaining of this water supply and its disposal. The first American company, that of the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Manufacturing Company, takes its water through a canal from the upper river. This canal passes through the centre of the city of Niagara Falls to the cliff just below the first steel cantilever bridge, the power plant and industries making use of its waters are located here at the top of the cliff. The other American company known as the Niagara Falls Power Company takes its water by a short canal, about a mile above the Falls and discharges the dead water through a tunnel that runs under the city of Niagara Falls to a point near the water's edge in the lower river directly below the first steel bridge. The Canadian Niagara Falls Power Company, allied with the American company, takes its water from Queen Victoria Park and discharges it below the Falls through a two thousand foot tunnel. The Toronto and Niagara Power Company, with its power plant built in the bed of the river near Tempest Point takes water through massive stone forebays in the river and sends it to the lower level through a tunnel beneath the river's bed opening directly behind the V in the Horseshoe Falls. The Ontario Power Company takes its water into large steel conduits near Dufferin Islands. These underground pipes conduct the water along the shore of the river to the power house situated on the lower level. The waste water is discharged through draft tubes directly into the river.