Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1894 — LIKE HARNESSING OF NIAGARA. [ARTICLE]

LIKE HARNESSING OF NIAGARA.

The Des Moines Rapids to Be Made to Work. Progress has made one more stride, and one of the greatest schemes of the century is well started toward realization. The contract for the proposed developments of the Des Moines Rapids water power has been signed and work will soon begin on the canal and power station which is to give to Keokuk and the surrounding country power which shall turn the wheels’ of industry as they never turned before in that locality. For moi e than twenty-five years it has been the dream of engineers and others to harness the immense natural power of the Mississippi River as it flows over the rapids at that point. Many surveys have been made and many plans drawn, but for some reason _oj other the matter was dropped in every instance until two years ago, when Capt. James Anthony, an able engineer, took the project in charge. Then it began to assume practical form. The scheme is to confine the water as it flows over the rapids in a wide canal, and use it in the operation of turbine water wheels, which in turn shall operate dynamos for the generation of electrical energy, which is to be transmitted by wires to the surrounding localities. The Illinois shore is to serve as one wall of the canal. Beginning at the mouth of Larry’s creek, near the Senora stone quarries, a wall similar to that of the government canal at this point is to be built. This wall is to be 20,000 feet in length, with an average height of 17 feet, being 13 feet 4 inches high at the head and 24 feet high at the lower end. the: e being a natural fall in the river of 13 feet 4 inches in that distance. At the head the canaßis to be 1,238 feet wide, and the width is to be gradually reduced toward the narrows, where it will be 400 feet. The wall will then parallel the shore for some distance, then the cmal will gradually widen to 1,485 feet. At the head of the canal a permanent ice boom of solid masonry 1,812 feet long, 10 feet high, and with an average width of 8 feet, is 19 be built. It will extend 100 feet beyond the outer wall, and will be 675 "feet above the end of the wall. At the lower end the canal is to be closed with a dam 930 feet longextending out from the shore, 24 feet high, 51 feet at the base and 5 feet at the crest. Extending out from and at an angle of 45 degrees with this dam will be the foundation for the power house, which will be 200<eet long and 80 feet wide. There is to be a capacity of 20 turbine water wheels, each developing 387 horse-power, capable of operating dynamos generating by the direct current system 27,000 electrical horsepower: At each side of the power house will be thiee flood gites, each 20 feet wide, set between solid masonry piers 26 feet high, with a 40-foot base and 10-foot crest By opening these gates the canal may be emptied in 12 hours. The working head of waler

will be 11 feet, and so vast is the capacity of the canal should the flow into it be cut off the plant could be operated 36 hours with the supply on hand. It is estimated that this improvement will coet $500,000. It is intended to have the canal completed and in working order by January 1, 1896,