I) Intro
The Niagara River is the river which connects two great lakes together and is located in Ontario, Canada. It connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. A landform which is located around here, that you may be familiar with, is the Welland Canal which is used so that ships can bypass the falls. The Welland Canal first opened in 1829, and this version of the Canal was dug by hand. The Canal has been widened and deepened over time, and the last alteration to it was made in 1959. It is run by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, and has allowed ships to bypass the amazing Niagara Falls that are found in the Niagara River, as well as the rapids on the river. (1)
The Niagara River flows from south to North and therefore flows from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The Niagara River also runs into the United States of America in some places. The total length of the river equals to fifty-eight kilometers. The River changes at certain points along its journey and becomes two rivers. This occurs at Grand Island. Here, the Niagara River turns into the West and the East Channel. The West Channel is known as the Canadian or the Chippawa Channel, and the East Channel was named the American or the Tonawanda Channel. (2)
The Niagara River is very unique in the way that it drains water along the ninety-nine meter elevation drop down which it flows. The water drained differs according to the time of the day and the season as some water is diverted to create hydroelectric energy. The volume of water during the day over the Niagara Falls when it is tourist season, April 1st to October 31st, must not be less than 2,832 m3/s. During the winter months, anything not in the tourist season, the water flow over the Fa...
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...two were on Marijuana and Cocaine at the time. A funny incident did occur while this dam was being built. This was that a man drove a truck worth 50,000 dollars over the edge of the dam into the Niagara River, and then proceeded to do the same thing to another truck worth just as much the next week. (7)
A fun fact that should be noted is the desire that many people have to go over the Falls in a barrel. Since the Falls were discovered 14 incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid, people have gone over the Falls in a barrel. One person went over in a barrel and survived, one of the few that did, and the next day slipped on a banana peel and died. The people that went over the Falls and survived have lived on to legacy and the people that died were honored, but one thing is for sure: the government is taking all possible precautions so that nobody else does this!
The Erie Canal was a man made water way that stretched to be three hundred sixty three miles long. The canal started construction in1817, and took nine years to completely finish the building process. People during this time had many positive, and negative opinions about the fact that this expensive canal was being built. The idea of the Erie Canal originates with Jesse Hawley, the idea was to connect the great lakes to the Atlantic ocean making an easy path to the west from the east without having to pass Niagara Falls. The canal was mostly built by Irish immigrants who were hated, or disliked, by most people. People had ideas and predictions about what would come of this canal. Let's just see which of the predictions were more accurate to
Water-power at Niagara Falls to Be Successfully Utilized: Its Objects, Facilities and Resources, Inducements for Manufacturers, Etc. Buffalo: Matthews, Northrup, 1886. 5. Print.
The South Fork Dam collapsed and unleashed 20 million tons of water from its reservoir. A wall of water, reaching up to 70 feet high, swept 14 miles down the Little Conemaugh River Valley, carrying away steel mills, houses, livestock and people. At 4:07 p.m., the floodwaters rushed into the industrial city of Johnstown, crushing houses and downtown businesses in a whirlpool that lasted 10 minutes. (New York Times, 1889).
It became a link between Fort Erie, Canada and Buffalo, New York. The bridge is over one mile long, 5,800 feet, and holds three lanes of traffic. The center lane may go north or south depending on the volume of traffic. In 1934, the Great Depression caused a change.
“The St. Johns River Entering the Atlantic Ocean” painted by Hermann Herzog stands in American Art as the most ascetically illustrative picture inspired in the Florida coastline. Although, this German American artist settled in Pennsylvania, he painted primarily landscapes inspired in the areas he visited. He traveled and painted throughout Florida, Maine, California and the Northeast side of the country coast.
The state offered to sell the canal, the railroad company bought it for the right of ways yet had no need to maintain the dam, which due to neglect, broke for the first time in 1862. McCullough stresses that man was responsible for the dam and its weaknesses nearly thirty years before the great flood as he explains how the initial repair work was carried out by unqualified people and how the discharge pipes were blocked up.... ... middle of paper ... ... McCullough makes a firm argument for the responsibility of man, and asserts the blame on the necessary people, therefore I feel he makes a fair and accurate assertion which I would agree with.
On May 31, 1889 4.8 billion gallons of water rushed down the Conemaugh Valley through Johnstown from the Conemaugh Reservoir. The flood killed over 2000 people and cause over 17 million dollars in in damage (today 17 million is equivalent to about 225 million dollars.) The South Fork Dam creating the reservoir created the problem; The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built the dam between 1838 and 1853. The Pennsylvania railroads acquired shipping priority over canals; through this Pennsylvania sold the canal and reservoir to the Pennsylvania Rail Road. Not having a need for the reservoir the Pennsylvanian rail road sold the land to speculators who wanted to build a resort. The speculators included Henry Clay Frick, Benjamin Ruff, and Andrew Carnegie. These men built a very exclusive resort and named it The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. At one point the club became known as the most exclusive club in The United States. Included in the building of the resort Frick wanted the dam to be lowered to allow for a road to be built on top. Lower dams could not hold excess water just in case the reservoir flooded.
Lake Erie is one of the first of the Great Lakes formed by the glaciers receding between 1 and 12,600 million years ago. Lake Erie borders New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Canadian Province, Ontario. Lake Erie is about 241 miles long, about 57 miles wide and has about 871 miles of shoreline. The length of Ohio's shoreline is about 312 miles. It has three basins: the western which averages about 24 feet, central which averages 60 feet and eastern basin. The eastern basin averages about 80 feet with a maximum depth are 210 feet which make it the deepest. The water surface area is about 9,910 square miles and the volume is about 116 cubic miles. The Detroit River water flow makes up
The Panama Canal has been called the big ditch, the bridge between two continents, and the greatest shortcut in the world. When it was finally finished in 1914, the 51-mile waterway cut off over 7,900 miles of the distance between New York and San Francisco, and changed the face of the industrialized world ("Panama Canal"). This Canal is not the longest, the widest, the deepest, or the oldest canal in the world, but it is the only canal to connect two oceans, and still today is the greatest man-made waterway in the world ("Panama Canal Connects).
People in the northern United States during the early nineteenth century wanted to rapidly industrialize and increase the amount of money they were making. The Erie Canal they believed was a great way to reduce the distance and time of shipping goods to the west. They also realized that the canal would probably increase their markets, which would mean a larger profit. The problem with all of this was how people had to destroy parts of nature in order for this to happen. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a prominent writer during the time, described the canal as “too rapid, unthinking advance of progress.” (57) Hawthorne and his supporters were very upset to see how forests and swamps were being destroyed and ruined in order t...
The Erie Canal created what was the first reliable transportation system, connecting the eastern seaboard (New York) and the western interior (Great Lakes) of the United States that did not require on land travel. Along with making water routes faster then travel on land it also cut costs of travel by 95 percent. The canal started a population surge in western New York, and opened regions farther west to settlement. This was the start of New York City becoming the chief U.S. port.
the Strait of Belle Isle, and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; on the south by New
the Atlantic Ocean to the fall line, the Piedmont which lies east of the Blue Ridge
The Love Canal is located near Niagara Falls in upstate New York. The Canal was constructed as a waterway during the nineteenth century, but was abandoned shortly afterwards.
look-out points allowed us to observe the incredible speed at which the water rushed over the rock. The water flows at an amazing 212,000 cubic feet of water per second. We were also guided to the basin where the falls originated miles away. In fact, over the last 12,000 years, the falls have eroded back seven miles. The incredible history of the falls came to life when I actually viewed them with my own eyes. No schoolbook could possibly give an understanding of the vastness of the falls. Nor could a book bring to life the remarkable history behind this amazing wonder of nature.