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R"UUIHQ N:Qg"fif@;‘;-
Secrets fVery Brink
ecrets theVEry Drin
How Science Overcame the
Stupenclous Sweep of the Great
Cataract and Mapped Out
Every Wirinkle of the Rocky
Lip Over Which Its 3
Floods Pour l
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\Q UNDERWOOD § UNDERWOOD,
& View of Practically the Whole Cataract with Its Millions of Horsepower Created By Its Fall
and Showing How the Float Was Manipulated at This Part.
NGINEERING ingenuity, set to the
E task by the necessities of power
plants deriving thelr energy from the
stupendous cataract of Niagara, has sre
ceeded in mapping every contour, chanuel
and gully through whioch the vast flood
pours down into the gorge 178 feet below.
The secrets of Niagara were probed at
Itß very brink, and the force of the rushing
waters against which no man or man-built
boat could stand yielded to a mechanism
of wood and steel and cables directed by
one human brain on the shore,
The fluctuations in the amount of water
passing over the falls has seriously handi
capped at times the work of the power sta
tions whose gigantic turbines grind the
electricity from the falling stream. The
work of charting the bed at the brink and
a mile or more farther'up was undertaken
by Mr. Leon R. Brown, who is In charge
of the office and fleld work of the New
York State Rallways at Rochester, N. Y.
¥From the data gathered it will be possible
to build dams and other obstructions
which will control the flow of the water
po that even in the driest seasonsg there
will be enough maintained at just the
wight spots to turn the power plants’
wheels.
Hazards were run in taking the sound
ings and heart-breaking disappointments
were occusioned by the failure of certain
parts of the apparatus to function during
the experimental stage of the work. The
sttaching of the barrels to the cables in
such a manner that they would not all
plide to one end was in itself a problem,
and several times the force of the current
‘was sufficleat to snap one of the cables.
At one time the downstream cable
snapped and, buoyed by its barrels, started
over the falls. The presence of mind of a
transitman in cutting the slack end of the
eable near the windlass saved the party a
Reavy loss, both in time and apparatus,
At another time Mr. Brown, who was
Standing on a concrete wall above the
giver, was struck by one of the cables and
Eknocked from the wall into the river bed.
But for the fortunate accident of striking
some rocks at the water's edye instead of
falling into the current, there {s no doubt
but what he would have been swept over
the falls. The windlasses, also, were dan.
rrot{n and several accidents ocourred in
andling the cables.
te:‘ron; a sclentific standpoint the appara
used by Mr. Brown is an invaluable
mlunct to work of a similar nature and
il materiaily aid in the development of
2
water-power and irrigation projects. It
will be particularly useful to Government
engineers in making hydrographic surveys
of the rivers of the country. Telling the
story of his achlevement to the New York
American, Mr, Brown said:
“A large area of the Niagara River just
above the falls varles in depth from 10 to
20 feet and has a velocity of about 30 feet
per second. The bottom is worn very un
even by the action of the water on the
Hmestone and is strewn with many
large boulders. The purpose of the
soundings was not only to obtain el%-
vations of the bottom of the river so
contours could be shown,
“For a person to venture out with
a boat or raft, even when secured to
the shore with strong cables, was out
of the question, for they would be
quickly overturned by striking e
rock or drawn entirely under by the
swift current. It was impossible be
cause of the width of the river to get
soundings from a car carried on an
overhead cable as the Government
does, and no diver however heavily
welghted could keep his feet in that
gwift current. The conclusion was
reached after some experimedting
that in order not to risk human life
some way must be devised to obtain
these soundings from the shore.
“The plan chosen was to operate a float
or raft with cables from the shore. This
float contained a sounding pole graduated
In feet and weighted at one end and ar
ranged so ft would always remain upright
in the water. The pole moved up and
down vertically and was operated by a
trip rope from tho shore. Its position was
located by triangulation from the shore
and the elevation of the bottom obtained
by level readings.
“The float was constructed of pine tim
bers, arranged in the form of a triangle,
with the ends mitred and securely bolted.
This was much more rigid than a square
frame would have been and did not require
lateral bracing. This triangle shape also
lent itself especially well to the action of
the current and the scheme of navigation
that was used to move the float from one
point to another.
“One of the most difficult rrobleml was
to get the float into a position to take
soundings, At first this was attempted by
attaching two cables to the float, one se
cured to a windlags located a considerable
distance above the area where the sound
ings were to be taken and the other some
distance below where the soundings were
t 0 be taken.
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“hege two eables were each
attached to a corner of the flogt,
allowing the third corner of the
float to point toward the shore,
The current acting against the
upper side of the float was ex
pected to push it out in the river
as far as would be necessary to
take the soundings,
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A Photograph of the Float
" Itself with the Waters
Worestling with It Just Before
Their Plunge Into the
Gorge Below.
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A Diagram By Enginecr Brown Showing How
the fioat Was Held in Position By Cables
Attached to Windlasses on Shore (Fig. 2).
bend in the river at this point, However,
it was soon found that this arrangement
was not satisfactory. There was so much
strain on the cable leading to the upper
windlass that four men could not wind it
up. At times the float with its long sound
ing pole would be drawn entirely under
the water, leaving no evidence on the sur
face to show where it was,
“This difficulty was overcome by an
other arrangement. (See Figure 2.) The
down windlass was removed and placed
by the side of the upstream windlass,
leaving the cables attached to the same
corners of the float. This at once re
lteved the excessive strain on the cables.
Instead of pulling against one another,
the cables were now pulling together.
Short plank nailed vertically on the up
stream side of the float formed a rudder.
The control of the float was now almost
perfect, as a study of Figure 2 will show.
“The action of the current of the river
on the upper side of the float caused the
float to move away from or toward the
shore, depending on the angle thn\{xide
made with the direction of the current.
Copyright, 1919, by Star Company.
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This was controlled by the two wind.
lasses. At the angle shown in the sketch,
the float would tend to move out from
the shore. /
“The speed at which this float moved
at right angles to the shore was aston
ishing. By changing the position of the
windlasses, it would have been possible
19 have moved the float entirely across
the river in this manmer. To move the
float up or down the stream, it was only
necessary to wind up or play out both
windlasses at once.
“A third cable leading to the shore at
right angles at point C waeg necessary to
hold the float stable. At times the strain
on this cable was so great that it required
several men pulling on a block and tackle
to haul the float toward the shore. This
cable was found to be very convenient
In taking a line of soundings at right
angles to the shore. By merely paying
out cable (C), starting with the float near
the shore and with the rudder set for an
off-shore movement as shown in Flgure 2,
one sounding after another could be taken
without any movement of the windlasses
Great Britain Rights Reserved.
©) UNDERWOOD % UNDERWOOOD
A Pictorial Diagrammatic View of the Brink of Niagara Falla
Showing How the Float Was Manipulated at This Point,
A and B. The course followed would ac
tually be an arc of a circle, but the radius
being so long made it approximately a
LINE To MEASURE DisTance ) [
FROM BASE LINE On THE SHORE "
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AOUNDING POLE (1}
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RuooEn v i ‘ '
A Working Drawing "I
of the Float That :
Probed Niagara’s
Secrets. 1 .
These were attached to the cable by clips
which passed through rings on special
hoops around each end of a barrel. Spec
ial care had to be taken to keep the barrels
from sliding down the cables.
“The sounding pole was thirty feet long,
about five inches in diameter and octago
nal in shape. The advantage of this shape
was that the paint wore off only at the
corners. It was found that with a round
pole sliding up and down in its pipe sup
port all graduations soon wore off, The
bottom part of the pole for about ten feet,
where it received the most wear, was
wrapped in sheet zine, and around this at
the extreme end was cast a lead weight of
200 pounds/ This was done by pouring
melted lead into the space between the
pole and a short plece of 8-inch cast iron
pipe. An eye-bolt that passed through
both the pipe and the pole was cast in the
lead and provided a place to attach lift
cable.
“A great difficulty was to hold the pole
in a vertical position at all times. If it
were held rigidly at right angles to the
plane of the raft it would seldom be in a
straight line,
“To support the
long cables leading
from the windlasses
to the float and thus
keep them from catch
ing under the large
boulders in the bot
tom of the river and
also to keep the
weight of the cables
from dragging the
float beneath the sur
race, empty barrels
carefully plugged and
made waterproof, were
fastened to them
about 200 feet apart.
STECL GUIDE PiPE.
%—g—fi_
vertical position, and the violent plunging
and rocking of the raft would soon break
it off.
“This was remedied (see detail -drawing
of raft) by a system of 3%-inch wire rope
cables attached to a 5-nch steel guide
pipe through which the sounding pole slid
up and down. Three cables or guys, each
about 4 feet long, went from an eye bolt
in the tiddle of each side of the raft to an
eve Lolt riveted in the bottom otlthe ver
pendicular steel guide pipe. They were of
such a length to bring the top of this pipe
about a foot above the top of the raft
when the pipe was perpendicular,
“The guide pipe itself was 6 feet long.
T'hese three supporting guys held the en-
Hre weight of the guide pipe and the
gsounding pole with its 200-foot weight, The
guide pipe was held in a perpendicular po
sition by three more guys ‘attached in a
similar manner to the top of the pipe and
then passing through pulleys attached to
the middle of each side of the raft. On
each of these three guys a weight of about
25 pounds was hung,
“The next step was to provide the sup
ports which were also made of wire rope.
These went from the welghts to the same
rings in the middle of the 'side of the tim
bers where the main guys were attached,
and were of such a length that all three
were just fairly taut when the plane of the
raft was horizontal and the guide pipe was
perpendicular.
“With this system of guys and weights it
will be seen that if the sounding pole is
moved from a perpendicular position, the
weight on the side toward which the pole
is moved ceases to pull any longer on the
pole, for it is supported by the supporting
cable. On the other hand, the weights on
the opposite side are lifted and so tend/to
pull the pole hack into the perpen
dicular. i
“It might have been possible to secure
the same result with springs, but no
springs could be found on short notice that
were satisfattory.”
There are other water falls n;d water
courses in which the rush of the water
has heretofore made similar soundings
impossible and therefore has defeated the
desire to utilize the power going to waste.
The Brown apparatus can be used in any
of these, and from a scientific standpoint
is an invalnable adjunct to the work of
developing water power and irrigation
pr.ojertu ‘wherever it is desirable to obtain
similar nformation before proceeding with
actual development,