At one minute past midnight on Monday last the Mayor
of Buffalo ordered a salvo of twenty-one guns to announce the fact that the electric power generated by the Niagara Falls had reached the city. Twenty-six miles away "a lead off " from the great cataract was turning a turbine at a speed of two hundred and fifty revolutions a minute, and developing five thousand horse-power of electrical energy. There are three of these turbines in action, and thus the Falls are perpetually transmitting along the wires an energy of fifteen thousand horse-power. In future the tramways in Buffalo will all be worked by the Falls, as will also the chief factories in the city. It is expected that in time the whole of the twenty- six miles between the Falls and Buffalo " will be built solid with smokeless factories," and that the Niagara region will become the greatest manufacturing centre on the continent. Of course the plan will be widely imitated. Perhaps we shall ask in the future not "Has the country got coal P" but " Has it got waterfalls P"
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