Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/210

 182

��Popular Science Monthly

��would produce about seven million, four hundred thousand horse-power.

Once provided with the mechanical means to control the vast volume of wa- ter, ordinarily sweeping over the crest of Niagara, the daily program would be as follows :

At 8 P. M. the entire series of gates on the dam would simultaneously close. A few minutes later and the American Falls would falter. The volume of water would swiftly diminish. Soon the grand curtain would be rent and gashed as if by invisible knives. A minute or two more, and rivulets here and there pour over the brink. The gloomy, cavernous recesses beneath the overhanging edge are revealed to the eye. Another minute, and the rivulets have changed to drops.

From Goat Island to the apex of the great Horseshoe the same sequence of transformations begins. It creeps stead- ily along the crest until it reaches the Canadian shore. The deafening roar of the cataract sinks to an agonizing groan, a reproachful sigh, a dying murmur. Niagara is silent!

A few minutes later and the rage and fury of the long stretch of rapids in the picturesque gorge falter and slowly sub- side. The vast volume of water between the foot of the falls and Queenston grad- ually drains away. A quiet lake remains between the railroad bridges and the base of the falls. Its surface is about eighty- six feet below the normal level, and the enclosing cliffs gain that much in height. It would be somewhat narrower than the present river, and frequent rocky islands would appear near the temporary banks.

For three-quarters of a mile the rela- tively narrow and shallow bed of the whirlpool rapids would be laid bare. The whirlpool itself would remain a some- what restricted and motionless sheet of water, forty feet below its normal level, at the head of a quiet fjord, extending inland from Lake Ontario.

Such would be the topographic chang- es attending the harnessing of the catar- act.

Synchronously with the vanishing of the falling tons of water, in thousands of workshops scattered over the fruitful territory of Ontario and New York, a million, perhaps many million, workmen begin their daily task. For fourteen

��hours the world's greatest beehive of in- dustry is filled with the busy hum of activity, keyed to the highest pitch, ban- queting, as it were, on the corpse of a murdered Niagara! One shift of seven hours is succeeded by another of the same length. All the energy of the sev- en million, four hundred thousand horse- power is devoted to the welfare of the nation.

It is 10 A. M. As the signal is flashed from the National Observatory the gates of the great dam shoot upward. The hum of spindle and loom, the clang of the triphammer, all the many-toned ga- mut of sound which forms the orchestral accompaniment of a busy, happy people shaping, fashioning, creating the objects of convenience or luxury destined for each other's comfort or enjoyment, — all sink to a whisper, — vanish!

A minute later and the crest of a vast billow sweeps over the brink of the American Fall. In an instant, almost, with a deafening roar of exultant joy, the cataract has sprung into full activity. Swiftly the falling curtain spreads from Goat Island along the crest of the semi- circle, until Niagara, in full panoply of power and might, hurls her defiance at the assembled thousands gathered to wit- ness the most wondrous sight on the face of the globe — the rebirth of a cataract. The spectacle would combine all the swiftness of movement and stupendous grandeur offered by the sweep of the Johnstown flood, or the tidal wave of Galveston, free from the tragic terrors and horrors of those cataclysms. The gloomy, beetling cliffs disappear behind the sheet of foam and spray ; rainbows hover in the clouds of mist ; the gray walls of the gorge echo back the roar of the proud cataract!

In a less dramatic and spectacular manner the level of water in the gorge would steadily rise; the foam and spray of the rapids become evident ; the whirl- pool resume its circling activity; and Niagara's normal life reappear.

For ten hours the thousands of ma- chines, of furnaces, of electrolytic vats rest or are available for repairs, until the sun sets, and in the twilight the hour approaches for an eager multitude to witness again the death agony of a cat- aract nnequaled in size.

�� �