Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1905 — NIAGARA FALLS IN DANGER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NIAGARA FALLS IN DANGER.

Time Coming When CommerciaHem May Destroy Great Cataract. "Niagara Falls are doomed. Children already born may yet walk dryshod from the mainland of New York State reservation to Goat Island across the present bed of Niagara river.” With this startling prediction Alton D. Adams opens an article in the March number of Oassier’s Magazine. This writer declares that certain economic, industrial and political forces are working strongly toward this result, and that their course can be stayed only by the strong arm of the government. It is not so much to their extraordinary height as to their great volume of water that the falls owe their boauty and grandeur, and as Mr. Adams shows that any diversion of the water Of the great lakes reduces by just •o much the amount that goes over the Niagara cataract, it matters little as to this result whether water is taken from Lake Michigan at Chicago or whether it is diverted from Niagara river near the upper rapids and then discharged into the gorge below by means of canals, pipe lines or tunnels, thither process, it is declared, will dry up tlie falls if it be allowed to progress sufficiently far. According to the measurements of United States engineers in the years 1899 and 1900, th'e normal discharge of the Niagara river for mean level in Lake Erie is 222,000 cubic feet per second, but this sinks, at times, to as little as 105,340

cubic feet per second; and this latter amount, great as it is, is said to be not beyond the capacity of water power developments like those now in progress about Niagara to seriously diminish or even dry up the falls. From estimates lately obtained of tlie various hydraulic plants now operating or in course of construction on both sides of the falls, it appears that these plants have a total capacity of about 48,800 cubic feet per second, or over 29 per cent of the minimum discharge of the river. The consumption of water by the prospective new barge canal, following the line of the present Erie canal from Buffalo to Savannah, will greatly add to tlie drain, while the Chicago drainage canal is already said to require as much as 0,000 cubic feet per second. Mr. Adams estimates that the total diversion of water from the great lakes above Niagara Falls, for all purposes, will reach as much as 07,400 cubic* feet per second when all of the works now operating or under construction are carried out to their full authorized capacity. This would be 41 per cent of the minimum discharge of the Niagara river.

NIAGARA FALLS.