power from Niagara to Montreal, Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. His
statements appear to have been based on theoretical considerations; but
there is no longer any doubt as to the possibility of transferring power
in this manner--its practicability for industrial purposes must
be determined by trial. Dr. Paget Higgs, a distinguished English
electrician, is now experimenting on it in the City of New York.

Great improvements in reaction water wheels have been made in the United
States within the last forty years. In the year 1844, the late Uriah
Atherton Boyden, a civil engineer of Massachusetts, commenced the design
and construction of Fourneyron turbines, in which he introduced various
improvements and a general perfection of form and workmanship, which
enabled a larger percentage of the theoretical power of the water to be
utilized than had been previously attained. The great results obtained
by Boyden with water wheels made in his perfect manner, and, in some
instances, almost regardless of cost, undoubtedly stimulated others to
attempt to approximate to these results at less cost; and there are now
many forms of wheel of low cost giving fully double the power, with the
same consumption of water, that was obtained from most of the older
forms of wheels of the same class.


ANCHOR ICE.

A frequent inconvenience in the use of water power in cold climates is
that peculiar form of ice called anchor or ground ice. It adheres to
stones, gravel, wood, and other substances forming the beds of streams,
the channels of conduits, and orifices through which water is drawn,
sometimes raising the level of water courses many feet by its
accumulation on the bed, and entirely closing small orifices through