Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/505

Rh or about to operate, when producing to their charter limits will abstract 48,000 cubic feet per second. That amount will bring the water-level to the bottom of the river at the American shore.

So much then is in immediate prospect. The turning of the waters a few days ago into the largest turbines the world has ever seen, thus inaugurating the actual production of Canadian power, sounded the death knell of the American Falls, leaving to those whose hearts sink and whose spirits shrivel at the thought of this destruction only a slender hope that it may be mechanically impracticable or commercially unprofitable to produce to the maximum amounts.

We are not permitted to stop with this forecast. One of the companies chartered by the legislature of New York and the last so chartered to abstract water from above the Falls, is the Niagara, Lockport & Ontario Power Co. It received in 1894 a franchise without restriction upon the amount of water it might use, but work was to begin in good faith within ten years. It was a modest organization with a slender capital, too slender, as it proved, to begin operations. It did nothing, but in 1904 came to the legislature of New York asking an improved charter enlarging its powers and extending its time. This company proposed to take its water from far above the cataract, as far back as La Salle, and not to return it to the river channel at all, but to carry it off overland by canal to Lockport, emptying it thence into Lake Ontario. The bill passed the legislature, not without commotion, but encountered trouble in the Executive Chamber. We have referred to the veto of this bill by Governor Odell as a fine act. Perhaps it is not necessary to say more, but the act was done in the face of most turbulent and insistent opposition, and it was clearly actuated by a relentless conviction of the higher rights of the citizens of the state. Ex cathedra statements by special attorneys and the company's engineers that no damage to the scenic features of the Falls could result, were supplemented by an offer of a tremendous sum to the state treasury for the governor's approval. The veto met with almost universal applause throughout the state. This veto was signed May 15, 1904. The company's old charter was signed May 21, 1894. There remained six days in which the company could get to work under its old charter. There is said to be to-day a slender ditch up south of Lockport, the work of a few men and a few carts, which represents the work done in good faith in the six days between May 15 and May 21, 1904. It has become a matter of common knowledge that this company has reorganized since these dates, increasing its capital enormously, and it is also stated that the stock has largely passed from the original organization into the control of one of the great corporations. It now looks as though this company means to do business if the courts have no objection, either