Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/757

Rh haul freight, one being of five hundred horse power and weighing thirty tons.

The current generated at the power station is of the alternating type, and undergoes one or two transformations before being used at its destination, but the operation of the apparatus is so perfect that this power, generated four and a half miles distant, can be used in connection with the steam engines at the mills, and each one will do its proper share of the work.

A plant of twelve thousand horse power is now being built at the Lachine Rapids, about five miles from Montreal, Canada, and, although it is not larger than some of those in operation, or in process of construction in the western part of the country, it may in time become such, as the source of power is very great, and increases can be made as fast as the demand calls for them. At Trenton, Canada, there is a plant of about nine hundred horse power which is transmitted a distance of twelve miles.

Within the past few months it has been found by the investigations of engineers that a very large power can be obtained near the town of Massena, in the State of New York. At this point the St. Lawrence River descends about one hundred feet in a few miles, going over the Long Sault Rapids; but the Grass River, which runs nearly parallel with it and only about three miles distant, drops but fifty feet. As a result of this difference in the fall of the two rivers, the St. Lawrence is fifty feet higher at the head of the rapids than the Grass. By cutting a canal of sufficient size at this point the water of the St. Lawrence can be diverted to the Grass and over the fifty-foot fall, thus developing an amount of power limited only by the size of the canal. The estimates of the engineers who have surveyed the site is that as much as two hundred thousand horse power can be obtained. The work of development is under way, and if it is carried through on the scale proposed will only be surpassed in magnitude by the Niagara plant.

The largest water-power transmission in the South is probably one located at Pelzer, North Carolina. At this place nearly four thousand horse power is utilized, and transmitted a distance of about three miles, where it is used for the operation of extensive cotton mills.

There are many transmission plants in different parts of the West, the largest of which is, perhaps, at Minneapolis, where the amount of power utilized is over ten thousand horse power; but none of these is of as much interest as those to be found on the Pacific slope, owing to the fact that with few exceptions the distance of transmission is short. In the latter section, however, the possibility of using electric transmission for great distances is better