The town of Niagara Falls, which has about seven thousand people, long
had its chief source of prosperity in the influx of sight-seers, but
it has recently developed into an important industrial centre through
the establishment of large works utilizing the power of the falls by
means of electricity. Some distance above the cataract on the American
side a tunnel starts, of which the outlet is just below the American
fall. This tunnel is one hundred and sixty-five feet below the river
surface at the initial point, and passes about two hundred feet
beneath the town, being over a mile long. Part of the waters of the
Upper Rapids are diverted to the head of the tunnel, and by falling
through deep shafts upon turbine wheels the water-power is utilized
for dynamos, and in this way an enormous force is obtained from the
electricity, which is used in various kinds of manufacturing, for
trolley roads and other purposes, some of the power being conducted to
Buffalo. A similar method is to be availed of on the Canadian side. It
is estimated that in various ways the Niagara Falls furnish fully four
hundred thousand horse-power for industrial uses, and the amount
constantly increases. The largest dynamos in the world, and the most
complete electrical adaptations of power are installed at these
Niagara works.
But the history of Niagara has not been always scenic and industrial.
In 1763 occurred the horrible massacre of the "Devil's Hole,"
alongside the gorge of the Lower Rapids, when a band of Senecas
ambushed a French commissary train with an escort, the whole force but
two, who escaped, being killed, while reinforcements, hurried from
Lewiston at the sound of the muskets, were nearly all caught and
tomahawked in a second ambush. Many of the victims were thrown alive
from the cliffs into the boiling Niagara rapids, their horses and
wagons being hurled down after them. There were repeated actions near
Niagara in the War of 1812. In October, 1812, the battle of Queenston
Heights was fought, the Americans storming the terrace and killing
General Brock, the British commander, whose monument is erected there,
but being finally defeated and most of them captured. There were
various contests near by in 1813, and the battle of Chippewa took
place above the falls on July 5, 1814, the British being defeated. On
July 25th the battle of Lundy's Lane was fought just west of the
falls, between sunset and midnight of a summer night, a contest with
varying success and doubtful result, the noise of the conflict
commingling with the roar of the cataract, and the dead of both armies
being buried on the field, so that, in the words of Lossing, "the
mighty diapason of the flood was their requiem."
"O'er Huron's wave the sun was low,
The weary soldier watched the bow
Fast fading from the cloud below
The dashing of Niagara.
"And while the phantom chained his sight
Ah! little thought he of the fight,--
The horrors of the dreamless night,
That posted on so rapidly."
Thus majestically wrote Mrs. Sigourney of this matchless cataract of
Niagara:
"Flow on forever in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on,
Unfathomed and resistless. God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet. And He doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of Him
Eternally--bidding the lip of man
Keep silence, and upon thine altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise. Earth fears to lift
The insect trump that tells her trifling joys,
Or fleeting triumphs, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn. Proud Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and all his waves
Retire abashed. For he hath need to sleep,
Sometimes, like a spent laborer, calling home
His boisterous billows from their vexing play,
To a long, dreary calm: but thy strong tide
Faints not, nor e'er with failing heart forgets
Its everlasting lesson, night or day.
The morning stars, that hailed Creation's birth,
Heard thy hoarse anthem mixing with their song
Jehovah's name; and the dissolving fires,
That wait the mandate of the day of doom
To wreck the Earth, shall find it deep inscribed
Upon thy rocky scroll."