Items of Interest August 21, 1915 Issue

Items of Interest

A plan to develop 2,000,000 electric horsepower by damming the lower Niagara river just above Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, N. Y., is reported to have been presented to the New York state authorities by the same man who introduced the original power development bill in the New York state legislature in 1886. The proposal calls for the expenditure of $100,000,000, which would cover the damages to the Gorge route. The dam would be ninety feet high. The Whirlpool rapids would be done away with. The drop of the river from the falls to Lewiston is one hundred feet. The waters of the river would be impounded back to within a mile of the falls. The falls would not be damaged, and the creation of the new falls at Queenston would compensate, it is claimed, for the loss of the rapids. One million horse-power would go to New York and a like amount to Ontario. By taxing the companies five dollars per horse-power, $5,000,000 would be derived by each government.

The historic edifice in New Orleans which has housed the United States mint since 1838 is to be turned over to the city for use as a museum or any other public purpose desired. Since 1911 there has been no coinage conducted in New Orleans, but the mint building has been used as an assay office. Its vaults continue to be used to store $22,000,000 in silver dollars against which silver certificates have been issued. The mint was established by an act of Congress March 3, 1835, and the site was donated by the city of New Orleans. The present building was completed in 1838 at an original cost of $182,000. The dimensions of the structure are 282 by 108 feet.

It is pointed out by the United States government that the opening of the new naval radio station at Darien, on the Canal Zone, does not add to the facilities for the transmission of commercial messages. The new station will be used exclusively for government business. Primarily it will be used as a means of directing operations of various kinds on the Canal Zone and keeping in communication with ships at sea, but it will also be used freely by the department of commerce for the sending of its official messages. Out of a total of forty-seven naval radio stations now in use in various parts of the United States or its possessions, twentyone, it is pointed out, are open to commercial messages, the others being reserved strictly for official business.

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