channel from Goat Island—thus affecting most the eastern side of the falls. If it were broken through, as it will be in the distant future by the recession of the falls, the water in the basin would be immediately lowered, and the Upper Rapids would reappear as a cataract just below the Buffalo Water Works, where the rock-floor is now seventeen feet below the surface of the river, while at a mile and a quarter farther down the drift has already been excavated to a depth of fifty-three feet.
13. Artifical Openings now made in the Basin.—It is immaterial whether the artificial enlargement of the orifice to the basin be made across the rim, or from its sides, or from the bottom. One lateral channel has been made for a breadth of 100 feet, and a depth of fourteen feet below the surface of the basin. There is also a neighboring one of about equal proportions. These made channels consequently reach depths much below the general level of the rock rim. They constitute the intakes of the two power companies on the New York side, and were calculated to carry 14,500 cubic feet per second at low stages (see map, figure 5).
On the Canadian side, the Ontario Power Company has installed a peculiar structure at the end of the rock rim, above which the river has a depth of five or six feet. Just below, at the natural edge of the basin, they threw out a wall, forming a wing-dam of some eight acres. This wall was brought to about the height of the river floor above.
