Evening capital news., October 21, 1917, Page 3, Image 15

About Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927

Image provided by: Idaho State Historical Society

                
HOW NIAGARA FIGHTS FOR UNCLE SAM
The Mighty Industries of the Fa,.
Dirigible Balloons—Wonders of
Us Which Are Working for Our'Army and Navy—Nitrates for Explosives—Artificial Diamonds for Grinding Projectiles—Aluminum for Airplanes and Silicon for
Electro-Chemistry—Chlorine for the Trenches—Ferrochromium and Artificial Graphite—The Unused Force of Niagara Equal to 25,030,000 Tons of Coal Yearly.
NIAGARA FALLS.
HAVE come here to tell
von how Niagara Fall?
fighting for us in our g
war in Europe. It is on^
the most important of
industrial assets of the nation, and its p i
nets affect every soldier that goes to
field and every sailor that mans our
sels of war. It has to do with every
that is fired and every projectile that sc
ters its deadly missiles over the trend
It aids in making the armor plate for our
battleships and in creating the fine jna»
chinery of the destroyers which chase the
submarine sneaking along under the |sea.
It has to do with the fighting airplanes
that flv the skies and vv*ith the gas which
fills the dirigible balloons that patrol the
waters along our coasts. It enters into
every workshop which is producing mate
rial to be sent across the ocean and, I might
say, into almost everything that has to do
with making us equal to our part in this,
the greatest struggle of history.
Of that vast force we arc now censuni
not more than one-si\th. The amour
500,000 horsepower, of which more i
three-fifths are developed on the Canad
side of the falls. According to our tre
we have the right to use only twenty tli
•and cubic feet of the water that goes i
the falls every second and Canada has
Before I describe the war industrie^ of
Niagara 1 want to tell you something of
the mighty force that moves them. Nia
gara Falls is .the greatest water power on
the face of the globe. I have seen the Falls
of the Zambesi in Africa and have traveled
up the Parana below the Falls of Igiia/u
in South America. Neither compares with
Niagara in the force which' it exerts from
one year's gnd to the other. The balls of
the Zambesi are twice as high as those of
Niagara. They are twice as broad and
when at their flood they drop with a thun
der equal to that of one of the great battles
in France into a pit four hundred feet deep,
sending up pillars of mist which are vi
for forty miles around. It has been
mated that those falls at their flood escr
a horsepower of tens of millions, but the
most of this disappears when the Zambesi
is low.
On the other hand, the Niagara river has
an almost even flow the year round. Only
thirty-four miles long and less than a mile
wide for the greater part of its course, it
is the downspout of all the Great Lakes,; ex
cepting Ontario. It begins at Lake Erie
■nd flows from there for a distance of about
twenty-two miles to the foot of the falls,
dropping the water from a li^ight about tiwo
fifths of that-of the Washington Monument.
A part of this drop is in the rapids above
the falls, but more than 160 feet of it is in
the falls themselves. The force is so g^ent
that some engineers have estimated i| as
equal to that of 7,000,000 horses all pulling
•t once.
I despair of making you see what this
mighty force is. Where the waters pour
in from Lake Erie they rush on at the
rate of 280,000 cubic feet a second, and at
the falls it is estimated that a block of water
a mile square and a mile high drops down
every week. The amount is millions of ions
every hour, and so much every minute that
if it were put upon wagons one million
horses could not haul the load. *The fqrce
has been variously estimated at from tfiree
million to seven million horsepower. Take
the lowest estimate and see what it means
in the coal we use to produce it. Every
horsepower which comes from water is
said to annually save at least ten tons of
coal. If this is so, the force of Niagara is
equal to thirty million tons of coal every
year or about one-fifteenth of all the coal
we arc now using for fuel and power,
right to 36,000 cubic feet. By the Burton
law our Congress has restricted the Amer
ican use to less than 16,000.feet. Just now
all the factories are short of power and
their work for the war is being cut down
by the lack of cheap water power. Some
of our industrial establishments have been
getting their power from Canada, but this
has been cut off since the war began, in or
der to make war supplies for the Canadian
troops, and there is now a strong demand on
the part of the manufacturers at Niagara
Falls for mor» water.
MAKING CARBORUNDUM FOR GRINDING WAR
MATERIALS THE FURNACES ARE ENORMOUS
I do not want to argue as to the advis
ability of taking more water in such a way
as to injure the beauty of Niagara Falls.
'1 hey arc the greatest show upon earth and
they belong to us and the Canadians. It
is well, however, to know what the show
costs us. The amount is equal to 25,000
horsepower. It equals a coal mine of 25,
000,000 tons every year, or more than 2,
000,000 tons of coal every month, year in
and year out, to the end of time. That is
what we are losing. If vve had such a mine
to burn every year, we could have the most
gorgeous conflagration on earth and we
might think it would pay us to keep it
ablaze in order to show our friends and our
visitors the magnificent sight. I don't know.
As it is now, only about 20 per ccnt'of the
waters of the falls are in use and some en
gineers say that 50 per cent could be taken
and not spoil the scenic effect of Niagara.
They claim that we could easily add 1,000,
000 additional horsepower to the amount
now being used. I am told there would be
a demand for such power as soon as the
plants required to generate it could be
built.
During my stay here I hal e gone through
some of the great power plants which have
been constructed a short distance above
the falls. The water is taken from the
Niagara river in canals walled with stone,
and is dropped down through penstocks or
mighty steel tubes so large that if they
were laid upon the ground a horse could
walk through them and his ears would just
graze the top. Stood upright they are as
tall as a sixteen-story house, and the water
drops down this great height in such a way
that it pushes the turbines around, turning
the mighty steel shafts which connect them
with the dynamos. There are ten or more
of these penstocks in each plant, with an
equal number of turbiq.es below, and of
dynamos high above them.
'I he dynamo® are enormous. They look
like giant mushrooms of black steel, which
are turning so fast that you cannot see them
move. They fly around at a speed of a
mile and three-quarters a minute, and each
generates electricity equal to more than
5,000 horsepower. Each dynamo is about
thirty feet in circumference. As I looked,
they made me think of thousands of horses
galloping at a faster speed than has ever
been made upon the race track.
It is in this way that the 500,000 horse
power now in use is developed. There are
two great powerhouses on the American and
several on the.Canadian side of the river.
All are connected with huge factories of
one kind or another, and they supply the
cheap power ^necessary for the industries
contributing to our Army and Navy sup
plies. The most of the plants belong to the
electro-chemical and electro-metaHurigcal
industries. They are more os less scientific
in their nature, and the men at the head
of them are inventors along chemical and
electrical lines. They use the cheap elec
tricity furnished here in making products
that could be created in no other wav.
Take first the artificial abrasive or grind
ing materials which are used in all indus
tries for making, fine fittings, sharpening
tools and cutting the hardest and softest of
steel. I here is a factory here which makes
carborundum, turning out a million pounds
or so every month. Carborundum was in
vented twenty-eight years ago, and at first
it sold for $432 a pound. It is now produced
so cheaply* through Niagara Falls that it
can be used in every factory and by the most
common workman. 'This material takes the
place of grindstones, emery and diamond
dust. In fact, it might be called artificial
diamonds, for it is composed of the hardest
of crystals, with edges so sharp that thev
THE DYNAMOS FLY AROUND AT THE RATE OF A MILE AND~THREE-QUARTERS A MINUTE.
can be used for grinding any material
without wearing. It is employed in everv
motor car plant, and it has to do with mak
ing ball-bearings, transmission gears, crank
shafts and everything connected with the
cheap and high-priced cars. It is used in
grinding the tools for the steel plants which
are making projectiles, and it smoothes the
shells which fit the guns to the thousandth
of an inch. It is.used in making all sorts of
agricultural implements which have to do
with our food supply, and with locomotives
and electrical machinery of every kind. It
will even grind manganese steel, which no
steel tool can cut, and it will sharpen the
finest of high-speed tools.
This wonderful product, like most of the
others created here, comes from some of the
cheapest and most common materials in
nature. It is forpied of crushed coke and
common sand, melted into crystals bv an
electric heat of 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or
more than thirty-four times as hot as boiling
water. During my stay here I have gone
through the plant which makesjt. It covers
twenty acres and it is now making large
quantities of abrasive materials to be used
in connection with the war.
The plant is guarded by soldiers, and
every employe has to have a photographic
pass before fie can get at his job. The of
ficial who took me in had to show his pho-.
tograph upon entering and we were watched
as we went from building to building,
where are the mighty electric 'furnaces,
which are «turning coke and sand into the
millions of crystals or artificial diamonds, to
be used as grindstones and grinding pow
ders.
I he furnaces are enormous. They are
cylinders or boes made or fire brick, so
high that the tallest man could walk through
them without bending his head. They are
about twenty feet long, seven feet wide,
and large enough to hold 70,000 pounds of
material, This material consists of crushed
coke and sand, mixed with a little sawdust
and salt to aid in the reduction. It is put
into the furnace in such a way that a cord
or rope of graphite runs lengthwise through
the center of the mass from one end to the
other. This cord, which is merely lumps
of graphite laid together in a little trench,
is connected with two big carbon rods, one
at each end of the furnace, and the'car
bon rods are joined to thick cables that
bring in the electricity.
The graphite cord carries the current
much like the ('lament in an incandescent
lamp. As it comes in, the black cord turns
white-hot and the electric heat increases un
til it reaches the enormous temperature
which I have mentioned. The heat is so
great that it would turn steel, iron, granite
or marble to a vapor and make the most re
fractory materials burn like so much tallow.
The fire is so glaring that if a person should
look directly into a furnace he would be
blinded, and the power consumed would be
insufficient to operate a sixteen-candle
power incandescent lamp for more than two
hundred years.
It is this terrible heat that turns the coke
and sand into crystals. It does that with
in thirty-six hours, at which time the steel
framework outside the furnace is raised by
machinery and the bricks are taken avvav.
showing chunks and masses of jewels in the
shape of crystals of all the colors of the rain
bow. I hese masses are then taken from
the furnace .and crushed by big iron wheels
into the millions of tinv individual crys
tals used for grinding and the ijiaking of
abrasives of various kind.'
But I cannot describe the nianv wonders
of these Niagara industries. It would take
more than.the space of this letter to tell you
the story of carborundum alone.. The most
interesting thing concerning it is how elec
tricity is used to produce it. for it is some
what after the same methods that the enor
mous current furnished here changes other
contmon things into materials of the great
est value.
This is the case with ferro-silicon, which
is used to absorb the oxygen from molten
steel, thus making possible sound castings
and ingots by eliminating blow holes. M e
are now making something like tvventy
"eight million tons of steel a year and 70
per cent of this is treated with ferro-silicon.
An enormous amount of it is now used in
all the steel plants that are working for the
war.
Silicon is also employed for generating
gas for our military balloons. All of the
armies in Europe are equipped with the ap
paratus to generate it. and that in connec
tion with their observation balloons.
Speaking of high-speed steel, this is a
product that depends almost entirely upon
Niagara power. It is owing to this steel,
made with alloys produced here, that we
have the »perfection of the modern cutting
Tool. In the old days of carbon steel it
was necessary to have a cool cutting edge,
and the best a man could get was a cut of
fifteen feet to the minute. With the high
speed tools we can now take off chips of
steel an inch and a half wide and half an
inch thick at the rate of fortv or fifty feet
a minute, and that notwithstanding the tool
is red hot. Without high-speed steel and
artificial abrasives our machine shops wotd 1
be cut to three-fourths or four-fifths of their
piesent product. An automobile plant
which now produces 500 cars per day could
not turn out more -than 100 cars with the
same plant and the same force.
Among the alloys made here are ferro
tungsten. Ferro-chromiutn is the hardening
agent used in making armor plate. With
out it there would be no tough skin to pn>
tect our battleships, and no armor-piercing
projectiles to serve our coast defenses. The
battleship Pennsylvania has 10.000 tons of
armor, and to make this was required 300
tons of ferro-chromiuin. The same mate
rial enters into the manufacture of automo
bile steel and dies. More than half of all
the ferro-chromiuin that is used in the Unit
ed States conies from the electric furnaces
at Niagara Falls.
Every one knows about aluminum. Tt
goes into automobiles and aeroplanes, and
is used for cooking utensils, acid containers
and electrical transmission. There are three
great plants here that make that* product,
and it is turned out by the millions of
pounds by means of this electric power.
And then take acetylene. The calcium
carbine made here by electricity is nmv sav
ing millions of gallons of crude oil, and,
m the shape of acetylene gas. is giving light
to thousands of Lomes and public buildings,
.dole than 500,(XX) miners now use acety
lene lamps, and the same light is used for
guarding the coast line in innumerable bea
con lights and buoys.
Acetylene, in conenclion with oxygen,
produces a flame which is about the hot
test known to chemistry. It is so power
ful that it will cut the hardest armor plate.
It is used in repairing the guns and other
machinery on the battlefields, and also in
doing similar work on our war vessels. Not
long ago a fourteen-inch propeller in i
French warship broke in two, and was
welded perfectly within thirty-six hours by
acetylene flames. A few years ago it
would have been sent to the dry-dock, and
it would have been six weeks before it was
fixed.
Our military boards have stated that w
shall need 180,(XX) tons of nitrates per ver?
to satisfy the demands of the w-ar. Nitrate
are a necessity in the making of all high ex
plosives, and they arc also the most valu
able of fertilizers. By means of electricit
they are making nitrates from the air a
Niagara. The plant has been located ii
Canada because it would not get power ti
operate its electric furnaces on this side o
the falls. It is, I think, the onlv plant thi
"ide of Norway which is making nitrate tha
way. I am not sure as to what the Ger
mans arc doing.
And then there is artificial graphite
which is made here in electric furnaces In
the millions of pounds. This was invente*
by Dr. Edward G. Acheson, the same mai
who discovered carborundum. It is electri
cal. ami it uses the most common materials
The product supplies the fabricants whici
are greasing the wheels of our motor car
in branee and of the other great power ma
chines used there. This graphite is als<
employed in electric smelting and refining
It aids in producing high-grade steels, alio*
steels and other alloyed metals of variou
kinds.
I might also speak of the new chenii
cals which are turned out at Niagara. Thes<
come from the electric processes and the*
have made this the center of the electro
chemical industry of the world. Anton;
other things, they make chlorine, which i
used for bleaching our newspapers, an<
which keeps our shirts and sheets from turn
ing yellow after washing. This chemical i
especially important just now from tin
wonderful success it has had in the treat
ment of typhoid, and in the purification o
our water supplies. It is said that a smal
capsule of chlorine emptied into a bucket o
the vilest water found in the trenches wil
kill all the germs and make it so that it cai
be drunk without danger.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.