See also: the Niagara
The falls the Niagara , commonly called falls of the Niagara () are a whole of falls of water located on the river the Niagara in the east of the North America, with the Frontière between the the United States and the Canada.
The falls of the Niagara ( Niagara Falls in English) are in fact triple:
- “horseshoe” ( Horseshoe Falls ) or Canadian falls;
- “American falls” ( American Falls );
- the “wedding veil” ( Bridal Veil Falls ), of a less size.
Although they are not particularly high, the falls of the Niagara are very broad. With a flow of more than 2 800 m ³ .sec−1, they are the most powerful falls of North America and certainly most known throughout the world.
The falls of the Niagara are re-elected for their beauty. They are also an immense source of hydroelectric energy and their safeguarding is an ecological challenge . This natural wonder, high place of the Tourism since more than one century, is shared by the twin cities of Niagara Falls in the State of New York in the United States and Niagara Falls in the Canadian province of the Ontario.
Formation of the falls
The falls of the Niagara, as well as the river the Niagara and the North-American Big lakes, appeared at the time of the deglaciation which followed the glacial period of Wisconsin,
there is: approximately 10000 years. For this period, the area of the Wisconsin was covered by enormous a continental Glacier (Inlandsis laurentidien) which while creeping towards the south since the Canadian territory Eastern crushed and transported Roche S and grounds on its course. It surcreusé Vallée S, sites of the futures Lac S, and barred of them others by Moraine S.
During and after the cast iron of the ice cap, the river had to cut through a path towards the North-West, in an upset topography, by incising new reads S. the current localization of the Canal Welland would correspond to old a Vallée. The floods coming from the Big lakes upstream formed the current Niagara river. This one being able more to follow its old embanked valley borrowed a new discharge system then passing by a northern escarpment of glance only it eroded in throat S. This escarpment is a face of Cuesta due to a Pendage monoclinal towards the south and to the resistance of the geological formation of Lockport (: - 415 million years, Silurien), resistant to erosion, between the Lake Érié and the Lake Ontario. The lower part of the escarpment, made up of marine rocks largely former to the last Glaciation, was thus subjected to erosion of the Niagara river. Three geological principal trainings are with the outcrop in the gorges of the Niagara.
The lately established river met initially the resistant formation of Lockport, whose erosion was done much more slowly than that of the more tender rocks located in lower part. The air photograph clearly shows the rock hat made up of hard stone of the formation of Lockport (average Silurien), upstream of the rapids. Its uneven represents approximately one the higher height third of the falls. This formation is made up of a very dense and very hard layer of Calcaire and Dolomite.
Lower two thirds of the escarpment let appear the formation of Rochester (Low Silurien), a layer much more tender and friable, with a stronger dip. It is mainly made up of marl, although intersected with fine layers of calcareous stone, and contains many fossils. This layer eroding more quickly, the river circumvented rock eminence on both sides lasts and dug the falls.
Submerged under the river, in the lower valley, at the shelter of the glances, the formation of Queenston (higher Ordovicien) is, composed of schists and fine sandstones. The three formations come from an old sea, and their various facies result from a change of conditions of this sea.
In the beginning, the falls of the Niagara were close to the current site of Lewiston in the State of New York and Queenston in Ontario, but the erosion of these peaks because the retreat of the water falls of a few kilometers. Just upstream of the current place of the falls, Goat Island divided the current of the Niagara river, which resulted in to separate the “horseshoe” in the west from the American falls and Bridal Veil in the east. Although the erosion and the recession of the falls were slowed down lately thanks to new technologies, the falls undoubtedly will move back to rather far drain the majority of the lake Érié, whose bottom is deeper than the height of the falls. The engineers endeavor today to reduce the rate of erosion to delay as a long time this event as possible.
The falls fall from a 52 meters height (170 feet), although with regard to the American falls one can see clearly only one 21 meters height (70 feet) before water does not reach a cluster of broken rocks coming from an enormous rock fallen in 1954. The Canadian falls , broadest, have a length of approximately 792 meters (: 2600 feet), whereas the American falls are broad only of 323 meters (: 1060 feet). The flow of the falls during the peak season is of: 5720 m ³ .s-1. During the summer, at the time of the maximum deviation of water being used for the hydroelectric production, the flow falls with: 2832 m ³ .s-1, of which nearly 90% pass by “the horseshoe”. This flow is still divided by two during the night, when the major part of the deviation of water at hydroelectric ends occurs.
History of the falls
The word “the Niagara” seems to come from the word Iroquois Onguiaahra (“the strait”). In the beginning, the inhabitants of this area were the Ongiara , a named tribe iroquoise the “ neutres ” by French colonists, who found them useful to regulate the conflicts with the other tribes.
According to Amerindian legends, Lelawala, a splendid young woman, was promised in marriage by her father to a good man whom she scorned. Rather than to marry, Lelawala chooses to be sacrificed to its true love He-No, the god of the thunder which lived in a cellar behind the “ iron with cheval ”. It brought its canoe to the rapid of the Niagara river and was reversed over edge. He-No caught up with it whereas it fell and their spirits would be dependant whole forever in the sanctuary of the god of the thunder, with the shelter of the falls.
A polemic exists to know which European was the first required written and oral descriptions of the falls of the Niagara. The zone was visited by Samuel de Champlain since 1604. Members of its procession described the spectacular water falls to him which it described in its newspaper but that it undoubtedly never really saw. Some allot to the naturalist finno-Swedish Pehr Kalm the handwritten original description made during a forwarding in the area at the beginning of the 18th century.
It exists there credible information which indicates that Paul Ragueneau visited the falls 35 years before Hennepin. However, the majority of the historians are appropriate that the father Louis Hennepin much earlier observed and described the falls of the Niagara, in 1677, after having traversed the area with the explorer Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur of the Room, thus subjecting it for submission to the whole world. Hennepin was also the first to describe the falls of Saint Anthony in the Minnesota. He in addition asserted to have descended the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico, which was later on refuted and carried the doubt about the validity of its writings and sketch of the falls of the Niagara.
During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and it was one of the tourist areas most visited starting from the middle of the century. The brother of Napoleon, Jerome Bonaparte visited them with his young woman at the beginning of the 19th century. The many complaints for the creation of a passage above the Niagara river led, in 1848, with the construction of a footbridge then to the construction of the " suspended bridge of Niagara" by Charles R. Ellet.
He was supplanted, in 1855, by the “suspended bridge of the falls of the Niagara” of German-American the John Augustus Roebling. In 1886, Leffert Buck replaced the bridge of made stone and wood Roebling by a steel bridge which still continuous to transport trains above the Niagara river today. The first steel vault built beside the falls was completed in 1897. Today known like the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge (bridge of the rapids whirling), it transports vehicles, trains, as well as pedestrians between Canada and the United States while passing just below the falls. In 1941, the “Commission of the bridges of the Falls of the Niagara” carried out the third crossing in the area of the falls of the Niagara with the Rainbow Bridge (bridge of the rainbow), which transports at the same time pedestrians and vehicles.
The falls are the stories object innumerable, one of most interesting tells the day when they ceased running. March 29th, 1848, the grondement usual one of the falls stopped. The flood of the falls had made place with a thin filament of water. People ran as a crowd to observe this incredible phenomenon. Some saw it as a sign that the end of the world approached. Others had fun to cross the bed of the river on several occasions, act which would have normally caused the death of whoever would have tried to do it. One discovered a multitude of astonishing objects at the river bed dried up, in particular the bayonets, rifles, tomahawks and other artefacts dating from the war of 1812. An obstruction of the river by ice had been formed upstream, with the mouth of the Niagara river and the lake Érié, and prevented water from descending the river. During the night of March 31st, the ice yielded and the river started again to run until the falls.
In particular after the First World War, tourism knew a new boom because the cars made easier the access to the falls much. The history of the falls of the Niagara, at the 20th century, is mainly related to the efforts made to collect the energy of the falls for the hydroelectric energy and to control the unrestrained development on each side - American and canadien - which threatened the natural beauty of the site.
Impact on industry and the trade
The considerable power deployed by the falls was for a long time used like energy source. Thus, as of 1759, Daniel Joncairs built small a channel upstream of the falls with an aim of feeding its Scierie. Later, in 1805, Augustus and Peter Porter repurchased with the government of the State of New York the whole of the falls on the American side and increased small the channel in order to constitute hydraulic power for their tannery. In 1853, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was created, which thereafter built the channels which would be used to produce electricity. In 1881, under the control of Schoellkopf Jacob, sufficient power was produced to send D.C. current in order to light the two sides of the falls themselves and the close village Niagara Falls.
When Nikola Tesla, for which a memorial was built later in the town of Niagara Falls, invented the three-phase system of the Alternative course for the transport of energy, the remote transport of electricity became possible. In 1883, the Niagara Falls Power Company, a successor of the company of Schoellkopf, urges George Westinghouse in order to develop a system aiming at producing alternative course. In 1886, thanks to the assistance of financial famous like J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV and the Vanderbilt S, of immense underground conduits was built, driving with turbines being able to generate up to 100.000 horse power. (75MW), and being able to provide in electricity a city like Buffalo to 32 km from there. Canadian side certain private companies also started to exploit the hydraulic power falls while employing either of the American companies, or of the companies of the vintage, in their efforts. The government of the province of Ontario finally decided to nationalize the distribution of electricity in 1906, thus supplying all the province in electricity produced by the Niagara. Today between 50% and 70% of the discharge of river are diverted in 4 gigantic tunnels far upstream from the falls. Water thus diverted then passes in hydroelectric turbines which supply in electricity the American and Canadian parts surrounding, before being transferred in the river far downstream from the falls.
The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara are Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 (1954) on the Canadian side and the Robert Moses the Niagara Power Plant (1961), as well as the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant , of with dimensions American. All units the power stations of the Niagara can produce approximately 4,4 GW of electricity.
In August 2005, the company Ontario Power Generation , which manages the power stations of Sir Adam Beck, decided to build a new tunnel of 10,4 km length in order to go to collect water upstream of the Niagara than it is not possible now. The end of the construction of this tunnel is planned for 2009 east should make it possible to increase the electrical production of Sir Adam Beck by 1,6 tW/h.
In order to circumvent the falls, the river transport borrows the Canal Welland. It was inaugurated in 1829 and did not cease being improved until our days, last important work dating from the years 60-70. It now forms part of the network Big lakes Sea route of the St. Lawrence (the Sea route of the St. Lawrence being under the responsibility of the Corporation of Management of the Sea route of the St. Lawrence, with dimensions Canadian, and of the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, with dimensions American). These deflections of river trade were done with depend on the city close to Buffalo, thus contributing to the economic decline of many its companies, companies iron and steel and cereal in particular. However the increase in electricity also caused an economic advancement in the valley the Niagara in the Seventies. A regional economic advancement which since fell down.
The twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York are connected by 3 bridges, Rainbow Bridge slightly downstream, offering the sight nearest on the chutes ; the bridge Whirlpool Rapids and, the most recent bridge, Lewiston-Queenston Bridge located close to the escarpment.
The airports of Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo the Niagara International Airport draw their name from the falls, the falls also gave their name to the university the Niagara University, of many regional companies and a celestial star.
Efforts of safeguarding
During the first two centuries after the installation of Europeans, the grounds on the two sides of the falls of the Niagara belonged to individuals. In the Years 1870, the Niagara falls became an important tourist destination, the site of the falls accommodating each year a quarter of million visitors. However, the tourists visiting the falls of the Niagara on the two sides of the river were dismayed by the private business practices which developed with the accesses of the falls without any control. The visitors often saw themselves badgered and the access to the site was not possible for them that with the help of the payment of exorbitant commissions.
The popular discontent led to the formation of the movement Free the Niagara (to release the Niagara), which included/understood the artist Frederic Edwin Church, the landscape gardener Frederick Law Olmsted, and the journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison. A series of letters that Harrison sent to the newspapers in Boston and in New York (joined together in 1992 in the lampoon The Condition off Niagara Falls, and the Measures Needed to Preserve Them (the Situation of the Falls of the Niagara, and necessary measures to preserve them) had a very particular influence in the reversal of the public opinion in favor of safeguarding.
In 1878, Lord Dufferin, General governor of Canada, expressed its concerns at the time of its speech during the lunch of Ontario Society off Artists in Toronto. It suggested that “the governments of New York and Ontario, or Canada, should join to acquire all the rights which could be established against it public, and to create around the falls a small international public park (...) pennies the responsibility for good guards” to preserve the decoration of the falls of the Niagara. Although the original suggestion of Lord Dufferin related to a “international park”, the two banks, American and Canadian, developed their parks separately and independently.
In 1885, the State of New York started to buy the grounds with the contractors, to constitute the reserve of the Falls of the Niagara. The same year, the province of Ontario created the Commission of the parks of the Niagara. The latter acquired grounds located along the Niagara river to constitute the Park of the Queen Victoria to the Falls of the Niagara, completely free, which accommodated its first visitors the May 24th 1888. Under the control surface of the Commission, this park extending at the beginning on 62,2 hectares, became a park of world reputation of 1.720 hectares skirting all the Niagara river, of the Lac Érié with the Lake Ontario, and cash of important national and provincial historical places, of the botanical gardens, a school of horticulture and surfaces entertaining. These two organizations succeeded remarkably in the operations of restrictions of the development of the falls and the river the Niagara.
Until recently, the falls moved back towards the south because of the erosion of 0,6 with 3 m per annum and are now with 11 km of their point of origin. This process was slowed down by the diversion of increasing quantities of water of the river the Niagara in hydroelectric stations, as well in the United States as in Canada. The January 2nd 1929, the Canada and the United States managed an agreement on an action plan aiming at preserving the falls. In 1950, the two countries signed the Treaty concerning the water derivation of the Niagara.
In addition to the diversion of water towards the hydroelectric stations, the efforts of control of erosion established underground outfalls aiming at redirecting the currents more the devastators, and finally of the mechanical reinforcements in top of the falls. The most spectacular work took place in 1969. In June, the river was completely diverted American falls during several months thanks to the construction of a temporary ground stopping and stone (clearly visible in top on the right photograph), which have for effect to stop the American falls. While the Canadian falls accommodated the additional flow, the body of the engineers of the Army of the United States studied the bed of the river and mechanically filled the cracks which would have differently accelerated the withdrawal of the American falls. A project going back to 1954 to remove an enormous quantity of alluvia was finally abandoned for budgetary reason, and in November 1969, the temporary stopping was dynamited, giving again their flow with the American falls.
After this company, Luna Island, the ground short period located between the principal fall and that of the Wedding veil, remained interdict with the public for years because of fears of instability and the risk to see the island crumbling in the Niagara river constantly.
The recent construction of large buildings (for the majority of the hotels) on the Canadian side of the falls because the change of management of the winds to the top of these last. Students of the university of Guelph showed, while using reduced models, that the air passing to the top of the new hotels leads dust towards the south of the buildings, where it fall into the drains under the falls and comes to mix with the swirls humid air. The consequence is that the points of view on the Canadian side are now often covered with a fog coming from the falls. This problem will be very difficult to solve.
Falls in the entertainment and the popular culture
In October 1829, Sam Patch, who was made call “the jumper Yankee”, jumped in the fall of the horseshoe and became the known first nobody to have survived the fall. It thus initiated a long tradition of breakage-necks which tried to survive a descent of the falls. In 1901, Annie Edson Taylor was the first nobody to descend the falls out of barrel. It left almost unscathed the fall. Since the historical fall of Taylor, 14 people intentionally threw falls, on or in a wherry. Some survived without damage, others ran or were seriously wounded. The descent of the falls being illegal on the two sides of the border, the survivors of such cascades are generally continued in front of the courts and subjected to heavy fines.
Other adventurers tried to cross the falls. That began in 1859 with the passage successful of the fildeferist Jean-François “Cableway” Gravelet above the falls. This exploit had gathered an important crowd. The rope crossed the throats near the bridge of the Rainbow, not completely above the falls themselves. The British captain Matthew Webb, first man to have crossed the Handle with the stroke, drowned in 1883 while trying to swim through the rapids and the swirls downstream from the falls.
The July 9th 1960, during what was then called “the miracle of the falls of the Niagara”, Roger Woodward, an American boy 7 years was thrown over the falls of the horseshoe, only protected by its life jacket. Deanne, his/her sister 17 year old was caught up with by two tourists, with only 6 meters of the fall, the level of the island of the goat. Roger was collected in the basins bubbling with the feet of the fall of the horseshoe, after having succeeded in off catching a life buoy sent by the team of the boat Maid the Mist . Its incredible survival made the round the world tour.
The October 20th 2003, Kirk Jones was the first to be jumped of the falls without material of floating. Although it is still not known if it or not wished to commit suicide, it survived a fall of 16 stages with only some broken coasts, of the scratches and the bruises. The July 2nd 1984, the Canadian Karel Soucek (of the town of Hamilton, in Ontario) succeeds in plunging falls of the horseshoe in a barrel by having only light wounds. Soucek was condemned to 500 dollars of fine to have carried out its cascade without authorization. He perishes a few years later at the time of an other challenge to death.
Nobody survived a descent of the American falls forever, because of the many rocks and the weak current. All the survivors and stuntmen descended the falls from the horseshoe, where the rocks are relatively fewer and where the current pushes people far from the edge and allows them to avoid them.
Whereas the falls of the Niagara were already an immense tourist place and one of the high places of honeymoons, the visits knew a sudden rise starting from 1953, with the exit of the Niagara , a film with Marilyn Monroe. Later, the falls also appeared in Superman II and were the subject of a popular film in technology IMAX. Most of the episode the return of Technodrome in the series the Tortoises Ninja proceeds near the falls of the Niagara and its hydroelectric factory. In 1990, it David Copperfield produced a turn where one saw it moving above the falls. The tourist complex located near the falls, was the theater of short American televised series beginning 2004, Wonderfalls. With the increase in the number of tourists come from the whole world, the number of visitors exceeded 14 million in 2003.
The August 4th 2005 the professional golfor John Daly tried to send a golf ball on other side of the falls of the Niagara to a distance of approximately 331 meters (362 yards). It failed of little, at the end of 20 attempts.
The expression Chutes of the Niagara is also the name of a British number of light comedy , also called Slowly I turned .
Since the arrival of the drug Viagra, whose name sounds like the Niagara, of many draftsmen represented the “ Viagra Falls ”, of powerful cascades whose water goes up instead of going down.
See the falls
The maximum surge visitors is done in summer, when one can admire the spectacle of the falls of the Niagara of day as in evening. Canadian side, projectors illuminate the two sides of the falls of the twilight at midnight.
American side, the falls of the Niagara can be admired footpaths or tower of observation of Park Prospective customer. Close from there, the paths of the Cavernes of the Winds carry out the hikers by a staircase of some three hundred steps up to a point located under the Falls of the Wedding veil. The the Niagara Scenic Trolley (“picturesque trams of the Niagara”) also offer circuits guided along the American falls.
Canadian side, the Park of the Queen Victoria present of the worked gardens, and terraces offering a sight on the American falls and of the Horseshoe. In underground, a way carries out in rooms of observations which give the illusion to be even falls inside. The point of observation of the Skylon tower, located not far from there, offers the point of view culminating on the falls, and in the opposed direction, allows to also see far Toronto. It is, with the tower Konika Minolta one of the two Canadian towers with sight on the falls. Along the river the Niagara, the the Niagara River Recreational Trail (entertaining way of the Niagara river) traverses the 56 km separating Fort Erie de Fort George, and present of many historic sites of the Guerre of 1812.
Cruisings Maid off the Mist named according to a character of Indian mythology Ogiara, transport passengers in the swirls behind the falls since 1846. The Spanish Cable car S, built in 1916 according to the plans of the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres there Quevedo, are cable cars which transport passengers above the swirl, behind the falls on the Canadian side.
| Random links: | Christian Rahn | Thierry Van Hasselt | Wachenbuchen | Robert McKim | Claude Lavoie |