As soon as breakfast had been finished I bade farewell to Captain Morrison, and to the mate and all of the crew, with whom I had somehow gained popularity, and then I was set on shore.
When I felt the solid ground beneath me and smelt the familiar odors of a seaport town, my fears almost gained the upper hand, and I was tempted to stay by the brig and return to Maryland in her. But finding that the town of Miller's Falls was distant only some thirty miles up in the country, and getting the right direction from the first person I asked, a blacksmith standing at the entrance to his forge, I set out bravely on foot with my belongings on a stick over my back, the way I had seen sailors start on a land voyage from Baltimore.
Hill country was new to me, and the stone walls and fences and neat white houses gave me much to wonder at, as I plodded along the road that was deep in dry dust, and such hard travelling that after I had made twelve miles, or such a matter of distance, I grew very tired, and determined to rest.
Although it was November the day was quite warm, and I sat down by the edge of a little brook and bathed my feet, that had blistered badly. The cold water felt very comforting, and I took my ease.
While drawing on my shoes I heard a strange sound, and saw coming down the road a two-wheeled cart drawn by a team of swaying oxen. Climbing up to the roadway and hailing the man who was walking at their heads, (calling out "Gee," "Haw," every other minute), I asked my whereabouts and the hour.
The farmer, even before he replied to my questionings, began to subject me to many of his own: "Where was I bound?" "Where did I come from?" and, "Who did I know in the parts?" To these I replied as best I could, and with a directness that seemed rather to disconcert him.
But he was a kindly man, and noticing that I limped, and that I was in no condition to travel, he proposed my stopping the night with him, and he would carry me part way on my journey on the morrow. To this I agreed, as I found I had wandered somewhat out of my way.
At supper that evening I tasted for the first time the delightful cakes made out of buckwheat, and had to relate again, for the benefit of my host and his wife (a tall, sharp-featured woman who spoke with a whining drawl), the story of my adventures and the eventful voyage of the Minetta.
When I told of the affair of the severed hand, and the action of the English, the woman quoted a passage from the Bible that was quite as much as a curse on the heads of the offenders, it breathed so of vengeance. But we had not burned half a candle before we all were yawning. Well, to be short, I slept in a great feather bed that night, and the next morning I started northward, mounted astride, behind Farmer Lyman on a jolting gray nag.
When my friend put me down he bade me a farewell, and told me I had but five miles before me to the town of Miller's Falls.
It was up and down hill, slow going, and noon, I should judge by the shadows, before I saw the village, nestling at the bend of a small valley. On the wind came to me the shrieking and clanking of machinery and the jarring of a waterfall.
I sat down on the top rail of a fence, and surveyed the village for some time before I descended the hill. As I walked along I saw in a steep gorge, a sheer descent of some fifty feet to one side of the roadway, a rushing brook, and almost in the centre of the town itself a pond that spread back into the hills.
The mill that was raising such a clatter stood at one side of a dam built of stone and timber that had backed the water of the pond; and I walked up close to the building and looked with wonder at everything. A huge over-shot wheel was turning and plashing busily, and the water was roaring over the dam and breaking on the brown slippery rocks below. It fascinated me, and I stood for some time leaning over the rail watching it. I grew so interested, in fact, that I almost forgot my mission or where I was, and was recalled to myself by a voice hailing me from only a few feet above my head.
"Well, sonny," said a drawling voice, "be ye wondering where all that water is goin' to?"
A thin cadaverous face with a very pointed nose and chin was thrust out of a little window, and two long hands on either side gave the man the effect of holding himself in his position by the exercise of sheer strength.
"I suppose it goes into the sea," I replied, perceiving that he wished to chaff me.
"Correct," he answered. "Go to the head."
"May I come into the mill?" I asked, for I had never seen one, and the varied noises excited my curiosity.
"Why, certainly," the man said. "Pull the latch-string in the door yonder and come in."
The mill not only sawed the long pine trunks into planks and squared timbers, of which there was a profusion about, but also ground most of the grain for the neighborhood. As I entered, the stones were grumbling and the air was full of dust.
"What is it you're making?" I shouted into the tall man's ear. He had greeted me at the doorway.
"Buckwheat cakes," he replied, thrusting his hand into the top of an open sack. "Ye're a stranger here, ain't ye?"
I knew what to expect by this time, and that probably my appearance had determined the miller to find out all he could about me merely for his own satisfaction. So, half shouting in his ear, I related (by the answering of questions) part of my story—at least I told him where I had come from and the why and wherefore of my trip. When it came to the asking for my uncle's place of residence I ran against trouble, and my heart sank.
"What is the name?" asked the thin man when I had first mentioned it.
"Monsieur Henri Amedee Lavalle de Brienne."
"Eh?"
I had to repeat it.
"No such person in these parts," the man answered, shaking his head positively. "And I ought to know," he added. (I dare say he did, and most people's private business besides.)
But here was an uncomfortable position. What was I to do? Somehow the hum and groaning and rumbling of the mill appeared to prevent my thinking, and I stepped to the door.
The village of Miller's Falls stretched down one wide road that curved about the edge of the mill-pond. It was not a cheerful-looking place taking it altogether, but it had a certain air of prosperity; there was some movement, and a number of horses and carts were on the streets.
All at once the chatter of voices and the familiarly shrill cries of boys at some rough merriment came up from the road at the right. I looked about the corner of the mill and saw that a half-dozen youngsters of about my own age were coming down the hill, and before them rode an odd figure on a small brown horse. It was a little man, who sat very erect, and who had a semi-military hat set aslant his gray hair, which was gathered in a long queue behind. His coat was of a very old fashion, made of velvet, and heavy riding-gaiters encased his thin legs.
The horse he was riding was by no means a bad one, and it was apparently all the old man could do to keep him from breaking into a run; and to accomplish this last was the evident intention of the crowd of small boys, for they were tickling the horse's heels, or giving him a cut now and then with some long switches; they varied this by pelting small pebbles at the rider. The latter, however, kept his seat and controlled the horse exceedingly well, although it was apparent that he was both angry and frightened, for he would stop and scold at the boys, and often turn his horse's head threateningly in their direction. This would excite a scattering and shouts of derision and laughter.
Some one spoke over my head at this moment, and I saw that the tall man and one of the mill hands, attracted by the noise, had perceived the approach of the old man and his tormentors.
"Why, it's old Debrin, from Mountain Brook," said the miller. "Come down to get his wheat ground, I reckon."
Slung across his saddle were two bags, and the rider was now headed toward the mill and restraining the horse with difficulty. When he drew up at the little platform it was all he could do to throw off the bags, and when he had lifted his legs from the stirrups and slid to ground I thought he would have fallen, and for the first time I perceived how old a man he was. Moved by some impulse, I jumped down from the door-sill and helped him tie the rope halter of the little horse fast to a post. The old man's hands were trembling so that I doubt if he could have accomplished it unaided.
My action had so surprised the boys that they had gathered in a circle about us in silence and astonishment. When I had finished, the old gentleman looked at me with his black beadlike eyes and raised his hat.
"Thank you, thank you very much," he said, in broken English, in which I recognized at once the manner in which my mother had spoken. The trace of the French tongue was there beyond all doubt. So I lifted my own cap, and answered in what I may well call my native tongue, and told him in French that I was very glad to have been able to help him.
His astonishment at hearing me address him thus was so great that for a minute it deprived him of the power of answering, but then he burst forth into such rapid speech and into so many violent gesticulations that it was all I could do to follow. The little crowd pressed us so close that I became embarrassed, and the old man, who had been complaining of the conduct of the boys and the temper of his horse, and at the same time stating how welcome it was to hear his own tongue again, suddenly saw that he was creating a great deal of amusement for the gaping, snickering circle about us. He drew himself up and his lip curled with contempt. I now, for the first time, had an opportunity to ask a question that had been forming itself in my mind.
"Are you Monsieur de Brienne?" I ventured.
"I am, and you?" he replied.
"Am Jean Hurdiss, your nephew, who has come all the way from Baltimore to see you."
Instantly his manner changed. I thought he was going to fling his arms about me. But if such was his intention he controlled himself.
"We will not talk before this canaille," he said, quietly, "and I cannot here express my delight at seeing you."
This must have appeared very strange to the on-lookers, who, of course, understood no word of what we were saying, and what happened afterwards must have been stranger still; and I can now readily see why I was regarded as a mystery by the inhabitants of Miller's Falls during the whole course of my stopping there.
The old man with a great deal of dignity laid hold of the sack of corn, and seeing that nobody volunteered to help him, I took up the other end, and we carried it into the mill. There he flung it on the floor, and M. de Brienne pointed at it with his finger.
"Grind me this," he said, in a commanding tone, despite the broken and twisted accents. "I will pay for it when I return."
The surprise occasioned by our actions at the meeting had evidently struck the crowd of youngsters dumb, but they were soon started again in their shouts of laughter by the difficulty that my uncle and I immediately had with the little brown horse. How so feeble a man as he appeared to be could ever manage the restive beast at all was more than I could see. Full half a dozen times he failed to make the saddle, even with my assistance, and this started the boys in their shouts of derision, and even drew laughter from the windows in which some of the mill-crew had gathered.
At last, however, I succeeded in getting the old gentleman into the saddle, and, obeying him, I crawled up behind him and placed my arms about his waist. But between my lack of knowledge, the horse's scampering, and the old man's weakness, we almost came to grief more than once.
Three of the little rapscallions, who of course could not follow us, for we had started on a run down the road, cut across the meadow by a path, as if intending to head us off for some reason.
They reached the main roadway first, and were waiting in an orchard at the end of a stone wall for us to go by. I noticed that they had gathered some apples, which they held in the hollows of their arms, much as boys carry snow-balls in an attack. I had been angry before, but now my one desire was to get at them. I often fear that I must be a vindictive person indeed.
As we approached they let fly, of course, and one of the apples caught my uncle squarely in the forehead. He would have fallen, I believe, had I not held him for an instant, and reaching forward I caught the reins and brought the little horse to a sudden halt. Then I slipped from my seat to the ground, and with no weapons but my closed fist I charged the enemy.
It is not bragging to say that from some ancestor I have inherited immense strength, and even at the age of thirteen I believe I should have been a match and more for some lads four or five years older. (Since I have been sixteen years old even I have never met a grown man who could force down my arms or twist a finger with me.) But to return: I caught the first boy a jolt with my closed fist on the side of the head, and seizing the second, who came to his rescue, I fairly believe I threw him over the fence without so much as touching it. He landed on some loose stones on the other side, and set up a tremendous bawling. The third lad did not stop to get a chance, but legged it as fast as he could across the meadow. I was so angry now that I believe murder was in my heart, and I picked up the broken branch of a tree and stood over the first boy whom I had struck. He looked up at me and began to beg for mercy.
"Bravo!" called my uncle from the horse, that for a wonder was standing still. "Bravo, mon enfant!"
He was wiping the juice of the apple from his eyes, but catching my glance he threw me a kiss from his finger-tips, and laughed a laugh of congratulation and sympathetic triumph.
I covered my fallen antagonist with added chagrin by scooping up with a sideway stroke of the foot some dust out of the road on top of him, and, walking to the horse, I clambered up behind again. Then, digging my heels into the nag's side, we started on a gallop up the hill and entered the woods that lined the crest.
I had been so angry that I dare say I had shed tears even at the moment of my victory (what varieties of weeping there are, to be sure), and I had such a lump in my throat that I waited for my uncle to begin any conversation he might wish, but he did not speak until after we had progressed some distance in among the trees. Then he pulled the horse up with a jerk (that caused me almost to break my nose on the back of his head), and he ordered me to dismount. I did so. Monsieur de Brienne leaned from the saddle and turned me around by the shoulder, much as I have seen a planter look at a negro before purchasing.
"Very like indeed," he muttered. "A true De Brienne."
Then he leaned further over and told me to embrace him. I complied, and he kissed me on each cheek and between the eyes. This quite embarrassed me, and I dropped my glance to the ground and shuffled uneasily; but the old man had begun to talk, and I dare say it was an hour that we stood there, for I had to tell him, of course, of my mother's death and of the burning of Marshwood. When I came to relate of the loss of the strong-box and its contents, the old gentleman grew quite pale, then he drew a long breath, and ripped out into a frightful burst of temper. For some reason I could not help but feel that it was directed against me, and I waited until he had calmed before I went on. Then I remembered the letter which had given me the only clew that had led to this meeting, and I thrust my hand into my coat pocket. It was not there? Fruitlessly I searched with a growing fear upon me, and I saw that my uncle's little black eyes were following my every movement; I could see that there was a certain suspicion in his look, but the letter was not forth-coming, and was not to be found in my bundle, although I undid it from the strap of the saddle-bag where I had tied it, and spread its few contents on the road-side.
"Where is the miniature that you spoke of finding?" inquired Monsieur de Brienne, in a cold harsh voice.
I told him what I imagined had become of it.
"Ah, bah!" he cried at this, and raised his hand as if he would have struck me. Had he done so I believe I should have pulled him from the saddle. He was scarcely larger than myself, and I was growing angry at his unnecessary and unjust words.
"What have you done?" he cried, restraining himself. "You have lost all the proofs—all the papers, you fool! Now we can prove nothing. A curse on such stupidity! What use are you without them? Why did you come?"
I had gathered up my possessions, and was tying together the corners of the handkerchief, making up my mind to burden him no longer with my presence, and to return whence I had started (for I still had a number of the gold pieces sewed in the lining of my cap, where Mr. Edgerton's maiden sister had placed them), but suddenly M. de Brienne spoke in rather an eager tone, and asked me to come closer to him. I did so, wondering. He leaned forward and caught one of the buttons of my coat between his thumb and forefinger and looked at it closely. Then he heaved a sigh.
"All there is left," he said. "Ah, my child, my child, you do not know what you have lost. Pardon my rough speech of a moment since, but what you told, and what has happened, appeared to turn into ashes what little hope I had left in life."
I was softened by the sadness of his tone and the real grief that showed itself in his small pinched features. So I looked up at him, and tried to smile.
"What is your name?" he questioned of me, eagerly, in a whisper, as if to extract a secret that I might not care to disclose aloud.
"John Hurdiss," I replied. "That's all I know."
The old man drew a long sigh. "Was your mother's name Hortense or Hélène?" he questioned again, suddenly and hoarsely.
"I don't know," I said. "I have no idea."
"So be it," he replied, as if accepting a decision against which there was no use railing. "Come, son; up with you, and we will ride on to my château."
We followed the well-worn road, and then turned off through the woods, and came to some pasture bars at the edge of a clearing. I slid to the ground and opened them at a command from my uncle, and replaced them after he had gone through. The field that we entered had been sheep-grazed, and was poor pasturage. Here and there crumbling hoof-worn patches of rock showed through the wiry close-cropped turf; clusters of rank fern and hard-back bushes were dotted about, and we threaded them, following a narrow path, until we came to another gate, which I opened in the way I had the first. A half-mile of travelling through an expanse of soft swampy ground, grown with alders and dogwood, and I heard the sound of running water. Soon we came to a clear brook that gurgled under overhanging banks, and purled about gleaming time-smoothed stones; crossing it, and clambering up the steep bank, we came to a second clearing, hardly five acres in extent. A half-score of large apple-trees and a diminutive garden were to the left, and at the upper edge of the clearing was a small unpainted house, and behind it a little barn, whose foundations extended into the hill-side.
"Gaston! Gaston!" called Monsieur de Brienne, at top voice. "Where are you hiding?"
In answer a head was thrust from the doorway, and the oddest-looking figure that I had ever seen came into view. It was an old man, whose frame when covered with flesh or muscles must have been enormous, but now so scantily cushioned were the bones that the quaint clothes hung on him much in the way that a coat hangs on a fence post. But the man moved with incredible swiftness. He gave a strange look at me, and took Monsieur de Brienne's stirrup-leather in his hand and assisted him to dismount. I pushed myself backwards over the horse's hind quarters.
"A guest, Gaston, to Belair. My nephew, Monsieur Jean Hurdiss. This is Gaston, my valet, chef, major-domo, and standing army."
My uncle had smiled as he said this, but the other's face was most serious. As I eyed him closely his countenance looked more like a ball of tightly wound twine with ears and features than anything else I could imagine. I had never seen such a mesh of wrinkles, or imagined that age could stamp itself so wonderfully. That the old man was not decrepit, however, was evident from the deft way in which he unsaddled the little horse and threw the trappings over his shoulder.
Now my uncle turned to me again. "Welcome, my son," he said. "Consider all here as yours entirely."
He ushered me through the doorway. I could scarce control an expression of my astonishment as I looked about. Immediately facing the light I saw something that caused me to start suddenly. It was the figure of a man in flowing satins and velvets; great heavy curls fell over his shoulders, and torrents of lace poured at his wristbands and knees. He had on high red-heeled shoes, fronted by wide bows, and his slender bejewelled hand rested on the top of a tall walking-stick.
It took me a second glance to perceive that it was but a portrait that extended from the floor to ceiling, and was merely nailed, without framing, against the wall. A rough table made of pine boards but covered with a handsome cloth was in the centre of the room. It was heaped high with books in embossed leather covers. Tacked about the walls were many portraits of times long since. One especially, before which I drew a long breath, dumfounded me (it was so like my mother). But Monsieur de Brienne had gathered me by the elbow, as it were, and marched me around.
The portrait whose resemblance had struck me so vividly he told me was my grandmother, and then went on, stopping before each, "Your great-grandfather, your great-uncle, your aunt," and so forth and so forth.
One might have thought that I was being introduced in person to all my ancestors and past family. In fact, I found myself bowing as if it were expected of me.
After a few minutes I had a chance to look about me. There were but four rooms on the ground-floor of the little house and three above; and if the furniture of Marshwood had been an odd assortment, that of Belair was odder still. I had noticed, as I have said, that the portraits were not in frames. They had evidently been brought from their former residence rolled in some shape or other for convenience. Many of them showed traces of rough handling, and were much cracked and soiled.
My uncle slept on the first floor in a great four-poster bed hung about with heavy curtains of embroidered silk, but the rest of the ameublement, was made up of clumsy wooden benches and stools, not the workmanship of a joiner, but clearly made by unskilled hands.
The room upstairs to which I was shown contained nothing but a mattress stuffed with cornhusks, and a beautiful painted landscape (which comparing with some that I have since seen must have been nothing less than a Claude, I dare say). A bench on which stood an ebony cross, and a large brass blunderbuss that hung from a nail over the door, were all the other things in the room.
At dinner that night we were waited upon by the great wizzened-faced servant, and my uncle, who was taken with a sleepy, tongue-tied mood, had attired himself in such a brilliantly faded costume that he resembled nothing less than one of the pictures that looked down at us.
Before the meal was half finished, however (it was exceedingly well cooked and toothsome), I received a shock.
Monsieur de Brienne suddenly and without a warning gave a little cry and fell back in his arm-chair (a home-made affair, cut from a barrel of some sort), and I, frightened, ran to his side.
But the old servant appeared quite used to this, and together we got my uncle into his bed, where we rubbed and chafed his limbs until I grew so tired I could hardly move. The next day I thought he was like to die. He would not let me leave him, and talked so incoherently that I could make no sense out of his maunderings at all.
Now begins such a strange existence that if it were told to me by any one who claimed to have led it I should be most doubtful. It would make a volume in itself, maybe, but I intend to hasten over this period, and to get quickly into that from which has developed the present, and which is leading up to whatever future there is before me.
To this end I shall do my best to resist any temptation to dwell at too great length on the life I led at the lonely farm-house on Mountain Brook.
Two men were once boasting of their wonderful physical powers, and a story told by one would be immediately capped by the other by the relation of a capability far more marvellous. Suddenly one of them pointed to a church spire which could be seen across the valley, and said,
"Do you see that church spire yonder?"
"I do," replied the other.
"Well, I can see a fly crawling on it! Can you?"
His companion looked at it attentively a moment, and said, slowly,
"No, I can't see it, but," placing his hand behind his ear and leaning forward, "I can hear it walk!"
Something quite as remarkable as the hearing the foot-step of a fly on a church steeple a mile distant was accomplished a few weeks ago, when, by means of a slender wire attached to an ordinary telephone, the sound of the "voice of many waters," situated 500 miles away, was distinctly heard in New York city.
The National Electric Light Association held its last annual meeting in New York, and in the Industrial Arts Building were exhibited the latest appliances of electricity; but of all the wonderful demonstrations of that strange power which slips so swiftly and silently along a slender wire, the most novel, if not the most wonderful, was the transmitting the roar of the Falls of Niagara through the long-distance telephone by means of the power generated by the cataract itself.
The meaning of the Indian name Niagara is "thunder of the waters," and it certainly was a most original idea to place this thunder on exhibition—"thunder on tap," a humorist might call it. The point chosen for collecting the sound was near the Cave of the Winds, where at the foot of the cliff one can get nearer to the waterfall than at any other point. The Cave of the Winds is between Goat and Luna islands, and is reached by the Biddle Stairway, a frail-looking structure built on the face of the cliff, and the adventurous tourist who ventures down this winding stair is almost deafened by the noise of the water as it strikes the great rocks that lie just below him.
The mechanical arrangements for sending the sound were very simple. An ordinary telephone, with the necessary apparatus, was placed in a tight wooden box, so that the instrument might be protected from the spray. Wires connected with the long-distance telephone were carried down the side of the cliff and attached to the telephone in the box. From one side of the box projected an immense tin funnel. This was the sound-collector. The rest of the operation was very easy. The current was turned on, and in a few seconds the sound was heard at the extreme end of the line. In the centre of the hall where the electric exposition was held was a working model of the Niagara Falls electric plant; around this model were twenty-four telephone transmitters, and the visitor could not only see the machinery moved by the power generated at the Falls, but hear the ceaseless roar of the great waters.
The greatest distance that electric power had ever before been transmitted was from the Falls of Neckar, in Germany, to a point 110 miles distant. Power for the exposition was to come nearly five times that length, and the occasion was so momentous a one that the gold key which President Cleveland used to set in motion the machinery for the World's Fair was used by Governor Morton to turn on the electric current generated by the Falls. As soon as the exposition was declared open, Governor Morton, according to a previously arranged plan, turned on a current from the Falls power which discharged a piece of government artillery simultaneously in the public squares of Augusta, Maine; St. Paul, Minnesota; San Francisco, California; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
The capturing of Niagara and setting it to work is one of the greatest feats of modern engineering. For years engineers have watched the power going to waste down the great cataract, and studied how it could be made available for mechanical purposes. The only device for using it was the building of a hydraulic canal opening out of the river above the Falls, and emptying into it at the edge of the bluff a mile or two below the Falls. Power was thus carried to several mills built on the bank, but it was a mere cipher compared to the great force daily poured over the great precipice, a force which has been scientifically estimated to equal nearly 6,000,000 horse-power, enough to drive all the machinery on the American continent.
Many plans for using this power were made, only to be abandoned, till Mr. Thomas Evershed, a division engineer on the Erie Canal, devised the scheme of digging wheel-pits above the Falls, placing turbine-wheels at the bottom of the pits, conveying water from the river to turn the wheels—which should be used to furnish the power to generate electricity—and carrying off the waste water through a large tunnel and emptying it into the river. The plan was found feasible, and in 1886 the Niagara Falls Power Company was incorporated by the Legislature of New York. Millions of dollars and the service of the most skilful engineers in the world were employed in carrying out the plan. Work was begun in 1887, and in January, 1894, the first great turbine-wheel was set at work.
The manner of using a part of the tremendous power of the cataract, though constructed on so gigantic a scale, is as simple to understand as the mechanism of a toy water-wheel, which, placed under a tiny fall of water, turns a miniature windmill on the bank of the stream. An inlet canal 1500 feet long, 500 feet wide, and 12 feet deep opens from the river at a point about a mile and a half above the Falls. A short distance from the side of the canal nearest the Falls, and near the end farthest from the river, are two wheel-pits 160 feet deep, and at the bottom of each pit is a 5000 horse-power Girard double turbine-wheel. From the canal to these pits are head-races fitted with sluices through which the water is admitted to the wheel-pits. Both the canal and the head-races are lined with solid masonry, and the gates which regulate the supply of water are open and shut by automatic levers. In each wheel-pit is an immense iron tube reaching from top to bottom of the pit, made of boiler iron. This tube, called a penstock, is seven feet in diameter, and the water pours down this huge pipe into the wheel-case in which the turbine revolves. A turbine-wheel is a vertical wheel which revolves from side to side like a top, the name being derived from the Latin word turbo, whirling, or spinning like a top.
Now a stream of water seven feet in diameter, falling from a height of 140 feet, must cause this mammoth water-top to spin round in its case at rather a lively rate, and so it does, for the turbine shaft revolves at the rate of 250 times a minute, and the speed can be increased to twice that number of times. The vertical shaft of the turbine is attached to a propeller shaft which rises to the floor of the power-house—built over the wheel-pits—where it is attached to a dynamo. Though the dynamos are the largest in the world, they are not the size originally designed, owing to the fact that no cars were large or stout enough to transport them, so the size of the base-plate of the dynamo was limited to one which could be carried by rail from the manufactory to the Falls.
Standing in the visitors' gallery of the power-house and watching these great dynamos whirling round so swiftly that the eye can scarcely perceive their motion, and remembering that it is caused by the expenditure of but a fraction of the power flowing over the Falls, one can form some idea of the great force which it has so long been the dream of engineers to turn to account.
Almost as great a feat as the digging of the wheel-pits and placing the turbines at the bottom, was the excavating of the tunnel to carry off the waste water. This tunnel, which is 7000 feet long, starts near the bottom of the wheel-pits, runs under the city, and empties into the river just below the suspension-bridge. It is horseshoe shaped, is 21 feet high, and 19 feet wide, in the curve. It is lined with brick, overlaid with rubble above, and the outlet is lined for 200 feet back with heavy cast-iron plates. The water does not run directly into the tunnel from the wheel-pits, but flows into it through a lateral tunnel or tail-race. This tail-race enters the main tunnel at an angle of sixty degrees. Both tunnels are horseshoe shaped, and where they unite they each curve differently, and it required a skilful mathematician to calculate the cutting and fitting of the stone for the bisecting of the arches.
It is interesting to see how this powerful machinery is kept in working order. From a circular opening in the floor of the power-house a winding staircase descends to the elevator landing. From this landing one may pass directly under the electric generators and see the various pipes which convey oil and water to the different parts of the machinery. One pipe carries oil to the upper, and a second pipe oil to the lower, bearings of the dynamos. A third pipe allows water to pass to the cooling chamber of the upper bearings, and a fourth, water to a similar chamber in the lower bearings.
The tank which holds the oil supply is placed near the roof of the power-house. After the oil has passed to the bearings of the dynamos and shafts it is conducted into a filtering cylinder; the clean oil runs into a tank below the cylinder, from which a pump forces it back into the supply tank. The pumps are run by the waste water in the bottom of the wheel-pits.
The main-shaft bearings are oiled in a novel manner. An immense iron cup, large enough to serve as a drinking-cup for the greatest of Gulliver's Brobdingnagians, is attached to the revolving shaft below the bearings. A pipe dips into the oil with which the cup is filled, and the centrifugal force of the revolving shaft is so great that it forces the oil up through the pipe to the top of the bearings, which it thoroughly oils, and the waste oil finds its way back into the cup. All that is necessary to supply the cup with fresh oil is to open a valve at the bottom, the dirty oil runs into the filtering cylinder, and the cup is filled with fresh oil from the supply tank.
An elevator descends to the bottom of the wheel-pits, where there are four galleries which enable the engineers to pass round the turbines and examine the workings. On the upper elevator landing one may see the gearings which connect the governor with the dynamos and with the turbine shaft, and the perfectly balanced levers which open and close the water-gates.
One of the interesting features of the power-house is a travelling-crane, which commands every portion of the floor of the building, and is capable of handling the largest piece of machinery in the works. If anything goes wrong with any part of the machinery, it can be removed with the greatest expedition, and a similar piece fitted in its place by means of this useful crane.
In July a company was incorporated under the name of the Cataract Power and Conduit Company for the purpose of furnishing electric power to the city of Buffalo from the Niagara Falls plant. Niagara Falls at once became the centre of interest for manufacturers, engineers, electricians, and scientists, and two days after the company was incorporated the electric plant was visited by a large party of distinguished men from different parts of the country.
Among the number was the great electrical magician Nikola Tesla, who believes that sooner or later the electricity in the earth may be pumped out of it at any point where it may be needed. The opinion of Mr. Tesla on the possibility of transmitting the power from the Falls any considerable distance was awaited with a great deal of eagerness.
"The project is sure to be successful," said Mr. Tesla, after inspecting the marvellous electrical machinery and viewing the almost unlimited capacity of the water-power.
The contracts for constructing the transmission line were let at once, and on November 4—two days after the election of the next President—Buffalo will be receiving power from the Falls of Niagara. The lines through which it is to be sent will be capable of transmitting 40,000 horse-power—enough to turn all the wheels in the Minneapolis flour-mills and whirl all the spindles in busy Holyoke.
The present power-station at the Falls, when fully equipped, will contain ten dynamos, the combined capacity of which will be 50,000 horse-power. Besides this station the company has a permit for constructing another canal the same size on the American side, and a franchise for a similar work on the Canadian side, provided the work is begun in three years from the granting of the franchise.
Everything connected with this work is on so gigantic a scale that it will not be surprising to learn that the tunnel through which the waste water is discharged is the largest hydraulic tunnel in the world, and of sufficient size to carry away enough water to develop 120,000 horse-power. Even this great volume of water diverted from its natural channel will not perceptibly lessen the 7000 tons which leap over the precipice every minute.
The end of the tunnel opening into the river is fifty feet lower than at its beginning, and as there are no rocks or stones to impede the passage of the water, it slides over the smooth floor at a tremendous speed, taking but a little over three minutes from the time that it enters the tunnel before it reaches the outlet. It rushes out of the tunnel with such force that it creates a cross-current far out into the river.
Knowing from whence it came and what it has been doing, one cannot but think, as he sees it come tumbling, leaping, and roaring out of the dark underground passage, that it is like a boy who has just finished some irksome task and is at last free to run and shout and play.
Jim and Ned were evidently bound to be good business men. Some of their plans for money-making were very peculiar. They lived side by side on Staten Island, in places where there was a magnificent view of the bay and harbor, and whence incoming and outgoing steamers could be seen to great advantage. They fitted up an office in a room in the attic of Jim's house, hung up a sign, "Shipping Office; latest news furnished of incoming and outgoing crafts"; and as they went at it in a systematic manner, had a capital spy-glass, and had been drilled from their earliest infancy in the knowledge of the different boats, they were often called upon by their neighbors to tell when a ship was due, or if it had already entered the Narrows. For this information they charged varying sums; and while not on the high-road to fortune, still made enough to provide many bottles of sarsaparilla, and more chewing-gum and bolivars than were at all good for the digestion.
Another scheme was selling eggs to their respective mothers, and they really had a very good chicken-yard for a time, while a mysterious account-book which bore the heading "JimandNedeggs" occasioned much merriment among their families (of course unknown to the boys). But latterly business had been dull. The best hens had succumbed to an epidemic, nobody wanted to know about the ships; it was early winter, and there were no more walks to be raked; in fact, a financial crisis was fast overtaking the two partners. Something had to be done, for there were Christmas presents to be bought, new bob-sleds to be had, and of a kind more dangerous than any they had yet risked their lives on. It was evident that only serious and concentrated thought could extricate the firm from the situation in which it was placed.
"Ned, we must think of some way in which we can make money. I was talking to Tom about it the other day, and all he would say was, 'Marse Jim, you leave it to me, and I'll think out a plan.' But not a syllable will he say as to what the plan is. He came up to the dining-room last night and called me out, said he had something of importance to tell me, and all it was, he asked me to ask mother for five dollars. Now you know as well as I do that mother won't let me have another cent for I don't know how long. She's mad because that money she gave us to put into the incubator was all thrown away by our forgetting about it, and leaving the eggs in there till the lamp exploded, and the eggs too. No, there's no use; we've got to find our way out ourselves. What do you think of our going out on a musk-rat hunt, and then selling the skins?"
"All very well," said Ned, the more prudent of the two; "but where are you going to find musk-rats, to begin with? How are you going to catch them when you do find them, and who's going to skin them?"
Blank despair settled down upon the two boys' countenances, and two more unhappy-looking individuals have, fortunately, rarely been seen. Suddenly around the corner of the house appeared a colored boy of about eighteen, black as the ace of spades, but grinning from ear to ear with good humor and amusement.
"What you sitting here in the cold for, you boys? Marse Ned, Marse Jim, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. If missus found you sitting in the cold, she won't give you no more money for your 'lowance, and you dun bus' now, you tole me."
"Oh, Tom, do tell us a way to get out of this—a way to make money!" said the two boys, simultaneously.
"Well, this nigger ain't much good making money, but you two boys come in the black hole and talk it over, and Tom'll help when he can."
The black hole was in the cellar where the furnace was, and was a favorite resort of Tom's. As they talked now Tom looked up suddenly. An idea had come to him, and he said: "Marse Jim, Marse Ned, you better raise rabbits. Then ask yer mother to let me go to New York jus' befo' Christmas-time; I'll sell 'em in the streets, fifty cents and dollar apiece. Rabbits don't cost nuffin' down hyar, to begin with, and we'll make so much money that you boys will give Tom 'nuf to go down South with an' see his poor old father and mother."
The scheme sounded very plausible, told in Tom's excited way; but then Ned suddenly said, "Tom, where are we going to get the rabbits to start with?"
That was rather a poser. But Tom had his answer ready.
"You boys, now listen to me. I wah just now chasing a rabbit harder'n I ever chased one befo'. Dat ah rabbit, he lives down the big hedge round de garden; he got sisters, brothers, cousins, lots of 'em. We ketch father and mother rabbit, then when we have lots of little rabbits we'se all right. Tom'll build big house for rabbits, keep it outside dar in the coal cellar, and feed 'em every day regular; no trouble at all after we catch father and mother."
The boys knew what rabbit tracks looked like in the snow, and the plan proposed by Tom was that, the first morning after a light snow-fall, they should get up early, and follow the tracks to the part of the hedge where the rabbits lived. He would every night put out some chopped carrots and turnips, and just as soon as the rabbits appeared, they all being in hiding themselves, jump out and catch them. After a long consultation they agreed the old plan was the only safe one—that of tying a string around their big toes, hanging the string out of their respective windows down over the piazza, then Tom would pull the string attached to Massa Jim's toe, and as soon as Jim was dressed, he'd run over and pull the string attached to Ned's. This plan had its disadvantages in summer, for mischievous elder sisters and brothers who sat up late in the evening had a nasty way of pulling the string before they went to bed, and more than once the boys had gotten up in the middle of the night, accordingly, and dressed themselves to go out, only to be met downstairs by the other members of the family with the news that it was still night, and not morning. In December few people sit up on the piazza, so there was less danger, and finally that was settled upon as the best way to do.
Several anxious days passed without any more snow, and the parents of the boys could not understand their sudden interest in the weather, as they generally didn't care at all. They read the weather reports until their eyes ached, but the only snow in sight was out in western Dakota, and it seemed as if it never would come to this region of the country. But as all comes round to him who will but wait, Jim was awakened one night—or as it seemed to him, night—with a hideous dream in which a rabbit was eating off his toe, to find that the string was being violently jerked. It didn't take him half a minute to get to the window, and when he looked out there was the sun just coming up and the ground covered with the loveliest, whitest snow. Jim did not wait to perform a very extensive toilet, and was over at Ned's, pulling the string attached to his toe, in less time than it takes to tell about it. Then as soon as Ned got out the two boys went in search of Tom, who was in a great state of excitement, and who had collected together two other darkies. The air was decidedly cold, but nobody minded it, so great was the excitement; and when some tiny little marks were seen in the snow the boys felt as if it were the greatest moment of their lives, all the more delicious because they all had to keep absolute silence. They went in single file, following down the little footfalls of the rabbit, when suddenly, just ahead of them, they saw the animal they were in search of, and not one only, but three of them. They looked so pretty nibbling away there at the carrots and turnips, and so wise with their long ears, that the boys could not bear to have them interrupted, and watched them for some little time.