Niagara Power. History of the Niagara Falls Power Company 1886-1918. Evolution of its central power station and alternating current system. Volume I. History and power projects.

Niagara Falls, NY, privately printed for the Nagara Falls Power Company, 1927. 4to (28.0 x 21.6 cm). Full colour frontispiece; title page in three colours; 455 pp.; many portraits, five maps (one coloured, two large, folding), one folding table, numerous text figures. Original blue cloth with title on the spine. Gilt top edges. Pictorial endpapers (map of Niagara Falls and surroundings). = Niagara was the world's first major hydro-electric power station and the first large installation to adopt alternating current. This impressive and lavish work covers not only the history of the plant and its machinery, but the Falls themselves. The accounts of how this project was evolved and carried through in a project which went well beyond the bounds of the then existing technology is a fascinating saga of industry. Signed by the author on the second blank recto. Copy with two extra leaves, on with a text "The Birth of Power", the second with a full colour illustration of a mural at the Niagara Power Station. Slight wear to board edges. Library stamp in the top margin of the front free endpaper recto. Second volume without any markings. A very good set. Uncommon, especially when complete, and signed, and definitely rare outside North America.