Niagara Falls - Wikipedia. Niagara Falls () is the collective name for three waterfalls that straddle the international border between Canada and the United States; more specifically, between the province of Ontario and the state of New York.
They form the southern end of the Niagara Gorge. From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls. The Horseshoe Falls lie mostly on the Canadian side and the American Falls entirely on the American side, separated by Goat Island. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also on the American side, separated from the other waterfalls by Luna Island. The international boundary line was originally drawn through Horseshoe Falls in 1. Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by vertical height and flow rate.
- Find high school friends using our Niagara Falls, (ON) alumni listings by last name that includes class year and contact info.
- NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive Contributed by Charlie Greene Contributed by Al Grazevich USNS Niagara Falls (T-AFS-3) ex USS Niagara Falls (AFS-3) (1967.
- Kodachrome slides my dad took in 1967. A good illustration of the falls before they removed all of the rubble at the bottom of the falls.
- Niagara Falls, which has now frozen over due to temperatures which dropped to 16 degrees on Wednesday, and it will likely stay frozen as temperatures drop even lower.
- The City of Niagara Falls possesses a fame and name that are based on the stunning, world-famous Niagara Falls on the Niagara River. Growth has combined tourism and.
- Niagara County (NY) newspapers on microfilm and paper at.
While not exceptionally high, the Niagara Falls are very wide. More than six million cubic feet (1. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 1. Characteristics. The larger Horseshoe Falls are about 2,6.
American Falls are 1,0. The distance between the American extremity of the Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 3,4.
The volume of water approaching the falls during peak flow season may sometimes be as much as 2. During the summer months, at least 1. Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities. This is accomplished by employing a weir .
It's taken 41 years, but a previously unseen set of photos of the mighty Niagara Falls reduced to nothing more than a barren cliff-top have finally surfaced. Skylon Tower's timeline takes you on a journey through significant Niagara events that has occurred throughout Skylon Tower's existence.
The falls' flow is further halved at night, and, during the low tourist season in the winter, remains a minimum of 5. Water diversion is regulated by the 1. Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control (IJC). The current rate of erosion is approximately 1 foot (0.
It is estimated that 5. Lake Erie will have been undermined and the falls will cease to exist. The same forces also created the North American Great Lakes and the Niagara River. All were dug by a continental ice sheet that drove through the area, deepening some river channels to form lakes, and damming others with debris.
In time, the river cut a gorge through the north- facing cliff, or cuesta. Because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The top rock formation was composed of erosion- resistant limestone and Lockport dolostone. That hard layer of stone eroded more slowly than the underlying materials. The aerial photo on the right clearly shows the hard caprock, the Lockport Formation (Middle Silurian), which underlies the rapids above the falls, and approximately the upper third of the high gorge wall. Immediately below the hard- rock formation, comprising about two thirds of the cliff, lay the weaker, softer, sloping Rochester Formation (Lower Silurian).
This formation was composed mainly of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It also contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks. This process repeated countless times, eventually carving out the falls. Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation (Upper Ordovician), which is composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea. About 1. 0,9. 00 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present- day Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of their crest has caused the waterfalls to retreat approximately 6.
Engineering has slowed erosion and recession. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, . Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called . It means, according to Mrs. Kerr, the neck; the term being first applied to the portage or neck of land, between lakes Erie and Ontario. Elliott's vocabulary, (chapter xi) it will be seen that the human neck, that is, according to the concrete vocabulary, his neck, is onyara.
Red Jacket pronounced the word Niagara to me, in the spring of 1. O- ne- au- ga- rah. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1. Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The Finnish- Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 1. The consensus honoree for the first description is the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin, who observed and described the falls in 1.
Kalm, after traveling with the explorer Ren. Further complicating matters, there is credible evidence the French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau visited the falls some 3. Hennepin's visit, while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of Vice- President Aaron Burr and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1.
In March 1. 84. 8, ice blockage caused the falls to stop; no water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 4. Waterwheels stopped, mills and factories shut down for having no power. This was supplanted by German- born John Augustus Roebling's Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge in 1. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. With increased railroad traffic, in 1.
Leffert Buck replaced Roebling's wood and stone bridge with the predominantly steel bridge that still carries trains over the Niagara River today. The first steel archway bridge near the falls was completed in 1. Known today as the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, it carries vehicles, trains, and pedestrians between Canada (through Canadian Customs Border Control) and the U. S. A. The story of Niagara Falls in the 2. A team from the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the American Falls in June 1.
Rockslides caused a significant buildup of rock at the bottom of the American side of the falls, and the engineers were to clean up the rock and repair some faults to prevent eventual erosion of the American side of the waterfall. A temporary dam was built to divert the flow of water to the Canadian side; the dam measured 6. The engineers cleared the rock debris and tested for safety, finishing the project in November of that year. Water flow was restored on November 2. In 1. 95. 5, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point.
Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether 4. 00 feet (1. Horseshoe Falls was eliminated, including 1. Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada. Hydroelectric power dam at the Robert Moses Generating facility, Lewiston, New York. The enormous energy of Niagara Falls has long been recognized as a potential source of power.
The first known effort to harness the waters was in 1. Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill. Augustus and Peter Porter purchased this area and all of American Falls in 1. New York state government, and enlarged the original canal to provide hydraulic power for their gristmill and tannery. In 1. 85. 3, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was chartered, which eventually constructed the canals that would be used to generate electricity.
In 1. 88. 1, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the Niagara River's first hydroelectric generating station was built. The water fell 8. The Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, formed the Cataract Company headed by Edward Dean Adams.
In 1. 89. 0, a five- member International Niagara Commission headed by Sir William Thomson among other distinguished scientists deliberated on the expansion of Niagara hydroelectric capacity based on seventeen proposals, but could not select any as the best combined project for hydraulic development and distribution. In 1. 89. 3, Westinghouse Electric (which had built the smaller- scale Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado, two years earlier) was hired to design a system to generate alternating current on Niagara Falls, and three years after that this large- scale AC power system was created (activated on August 2. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had fueled the construction of giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 1. MW), sent as far as Buffalo, 2. Some of the original designs for the power transmission plants were created by the Swiss firm Faesch & Piccard, which also constructed the original 5,0.
HP waterwheels. Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the falls. The government of Ontario eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1. Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province. Other hydropower plants were also being built along the Niagara River. But in 1. 95. 6, disaster struck when the region's largest hydropower station was partially destroyed in a landslide. This drastically reduced power production and put tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs at stake.
In 1. 95. 7, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act, which granted the New York Power Authority the right to fully develop the United States' share of the Niagara River's hydroelectric potential. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state, with a generating capacity of 2.
Currently between 5. Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of Canada and the United States before returning to the river well past the falls. When electricity demand is low, the Lewiston units can operate as pumps to transport water from the lower bay back up to the plant's reservoir, allowing this water to be used again during the daytime when electricity use peaks.