Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/608

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��Popular Science Monthly

��Miniature Ships That Were Built to Prove a Point

IN an effort to show the constant necessity of deepening the channel leading into New York Harbor, the War Department has had an interesting fleet of perfectly modeled miniature ships made by H. E. Boucher of New York, ranging from the S. S. Dreadnought of nearly a century ago to the S. S. Vater- land of the present day. Other minia- ture ships in this fleet are the Britannic, Borussia, Arizona, and Oceanic, with drafts of from sixteen feet in the case of the Dreadnought to thirty-eight feet in the case of the Vaterland.

��it will also serve as a source of power for manufacturers. Another important fea- ture involved in his plan is to conserve the scenic beauty of Niagara Falls, which is now being seriously threatened by power plants. The scheme is to con- struct a canal between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and provide adequate locks to compensate for the fall in water level so that the canal can eventually be used for trafhc. More important to the people on the lower levels, however, than its use for power and traffic, is the pros- pect of an unlimited amount of fresh, pure water.

Numersous cities cast their sewage

���The steamers of the world's history, in exact relative proportions, are shown in a War Department model. The whole story of the steamer's development is graphically shown

in tiny compass

��The intention of the War Department is to prove that the increase in size of ocean vessels with their consequent in- creased draft means that sea harbors, to be adequate, should be dredged con- tinually.

Pure Water for Six Hundred Thou- sand People

A SYSTEM of supplying pure water to the community between Buffalo and Lake Ontario, now using the water of the Niagara River, which is contami- nated by the City of Buffalo, has been planned by an engineer residing at Washington, D. C.

Not only will his water system furnish water to the cities on the lower level, but

��into Lake Erie so that its lower end is unfit for human consumption. From a technical standpoint, one of the most interesting phases of the proposed proj- ect is the way of reducing the danger now existing.

The canal will have two intakes, one above the city of Buffalo and the other below it. The latter conducts away the sewage from the city so that the towns farther down the river are most effec- tively immunized.

Another advantage of the canal will be its provision of a safe harbor at either end. The power plant which is proposed to do away with much of the water diversion at the Falls will be located at the end of the canal, overlooking Lake Ontario.

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