The mechanical arrangements for sending the sound were very simple. An ordinary telephone, with the necessary apparatus, was placed in a tight wooden box, so that the instrument might be protected from the spray. Wires connected with the long-distance telephone were carried down the side of the cliff and attached to the telephone in the box. From one side of the box projected an immense tin funnel. This was the sound-collector. The rest of the operation was very easy. The current was turned on, and in a few seconds the sound was heard at the extreme end of the line. In the centre of the hall where the electric exposition was held was a working model of the Niagara Falls electric plant; around this model were twenty-four telephone transmitters, and the visitor could not only see the machinery moved by the power generated at the Falls, but hear the ceaseless roar of the great waters.
The greatest distance that electric power had ever before been transmitted was from the Falls of Neckar, in Germany, to a point 110 miles distant. Power for the exposition was to come nearly five times that length, and the occasion was so momentous a one that the gold key which President Cleveland used to set in motion the machinery for the World's Fair was used by Governor Morton to turn on the electric current generated by the Falls. As soon as the exposition was declared open, Governor Morton, according to a previously arranged plan, turned on a current from the Falls power which discharged a piece of government artillery simultaneously in the public squares of Augusta, Maine; St. Paul, Minnesota; San Francisco, California; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
TURBINE READY TO BE LOWERED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WHEEL-PIT.
The capturing of Niagara and setting it to work is one of the greatest feats of modern engineering. For years engineers have watched the power going to waste down the great cataract, and studied how it could be made available for mechanical purposes. The only device for using it was the building of a hydraulic canal opening out of the river above the Falls, and emptying into it at the edge of the bluff a mile or two below the Falls. Power was thus carried to several mills built on the bank, but it was a mere cipher compared to the great force daily poured over the great precipice, a force which has been scientifically estimated to equal nearly 6,000,000 horse-power, enough to drive all the machinery on the American continent.
Many plans for using this power were made, only to be abandoned, till Mr. Thomas Evershed, a division engineer on the Erie Canal, devised the scheme of digging wheel-pits above the Falls, placing turbine-wheels at the bottom of the pits, conveying water from the river to turn the wheels—which should be used to furnish the power to generate electricity—and carrying off the waste water through a large tunnel and emptying it into the river. The plan was found feasible, and in 1886 the Niagara Falls Power Company was incorporated by the Legislature of New York. Millions of dollars and the service of the most skilful engineers in the world were employed in carrying out the plan. Work was begun in 1887, and in January, 1894, the first great turbine-wheel was set at work.
THE WHEEL-PIT IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION.
The manner of using a part of the tremendous power of the cataract, though constructed on so gigantic a scale, is as simple to understand as the mechanism of a toy water-wheel, which, placed under a tiny fall of water, turns a miniature windmill on the bank of the stream. An inlet canal 1500 feet long, 500 feet wide, and 12 feet deep opens from the river at a point about a mile and a half above the Falls. A short distance from the side of the canal nearest the Falls, and near the end farthest from the river, are two wheel-pits 160 feet deep, and at the bottom of each pit is a 5000 horse-power Girard double turbine-wheel. From the canal to these pits are head-races fitted with sluices through which the water is admitted to the wheel-pits. Both the canal and the head-races are lined with solid masonry, and the gates which regulate the supply of water are open and shut by automatic levers. In each wheel-pit is an immense iron tube reaching from top to bottom of the pit, made of boiler iron. This tube, called a penstock, is seven feet in diameter, and the water pours down this huge pipe into the wheel-case in which the turbine revolves. A turbine-wheel is a vertical wheel which revolves from side to side like a top, the name being derived from the Latin word turbo, whirling, or spinning like a top.
