File:The conquest of nature (1911) (14766039752).jpg

Identifier: conquestofnature00will (find matches)
Title: The conquest of nature
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Williams, Henry Smith, 1863- Williams, Edward Huntington, 1868-1944, joint author
Subjects: Industrial arts Machinery
Publisher: New York and London, The Goodhue company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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by a miracle of modernscience, the potential energy which resides in the waterof the canal is transformed into an electrical currentwhich is sent out over a network of wires to distantcities to perform a thousand necromantic tasks,—pro-pelling a street car in one place, effecting chemical de-compositions in another; turning the wheels of a factoryhere and lighting the streets of a city there; in short, sub-serving the practical needs of man in devious and won-derful ways. Even as you gazed disdainfully at the stagnant canal,its waters, miraculously transformed, were propellingthe trolley cars along the brink of the cliff over thereon the Canadian shore, and at the same time were tum^ing the wheels in many a factory in the distant city ofBuffalo. After all, then, the quiet pool of water wasnot so prosaic as it seemed. As you stand in the building where this wonderfultransformation of power is effected, the noble simplicityof the vista heightens the mystery. The most significant (i86)
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VIEW IN ONE OF THE POWER HOUSES AT NIAGARA. Each of the top-hke dynamos generates 5000 horse-power. NIAGARA IN HARNESS thing that strikes the eye is a row of great mushroom-like affairs, for all the world like giant tops, that standspinning—and spinning. These great tops are about adozen feet in diameter. They are whirling, so we aretold, at a rate of two hundred and fifty revolutions perminute. Hour after hour they spin on, never varyingin speed, never faltering; day and night are alike tothem, and one day is like another. They are as cease-lessly active, as unwearying as Niagara itself, whosepower they symbolize; and, like the great Falls, theymurmur exultingly as they work. The giant tops which thus seem to bid defiance to thelaws of motion are in reality electric dynamos, no dif-ferent in principle from the electric generators withwhich some visit to a street-car power-house has doubt-less made you familiar. The anomalous feature ofthese dynamos—in addition to their size—is

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