Company r, the proprietor sold out for £38,000, to one Soames, citizen and goldsmith of London, who made a joint stock of the concern, and obtained from the corporation the lease of another arch. Subsequently the use of two more arches was granted to the company, and thus enlarged, the works were vigorously carried on — a considerable portion of the inhabitants of the city, both experiencing and acknowledging their utility. The revenue, however, was not large, as the distribution had originally been made through wooden pipes, which were found incapable of sustaining the pressure necessary for conveying water to the upper stories of lofty houses. The disadvantage under which this company labored, in competition with the New River Company — whose distribution was through iron pipes — still further diminished the returns. The company, therefore, dragged feebly on, till the building of the New London Bridge, in 1822, entirely annihilated their works. The region they supplied is now furnished by the New River and the East London Water Works. By a return made to Parliament in 1821, the London Bridge Company, just previous to the final destruction of their works, supplied 10,417 houses with 26,322,705 hogsheads per annum, at a rental of £12,266 — about $61,000. The New River Company purchased all their rights and leases for an annuity of £3750, to continue 200 years. The New River was the work of one public spirited individual. " Master Hugh Myd- delton, citizen and goldsmith of London," in March, 1609, after having in vain urged the corporation to the enterprise, obtained from them a transfer of the right conferred upon them by an act of Parliament, to bring a stream of pure water into the city from the springs of Amwell and Chadwell, in Hertfordshire. He immediately commenced the * A hoghshead is equal to 63 gallons.— [Ep.J 14 54 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. work, and, by the aid of a loan from King James L, who stipulated that one rnoiety of the property should be conveyed to him for security, and triumphing over many obstacles from landholders, through whose possessions the river was to pass, and the greater obstacles arising from deficient skill in engineering, he accomplished it in five years ; and on the 29th September, 1613, the water entered the reservoir now known as the New River Head, in the parish of Clerkenwell. The execution of such an enterprise in that age was not only arduous, but deemed wonderful. Stowe thus alludes to some of its difficulties : " the depth of the trenches in some places descended full thirty feet, if not more, whereas in other places it required a sprightful arte again to mount over a valley in a trough between a couple of hills — and the trough all the while borne up by wooden arches, some of them fixed in the ground very deep and rising in height above 20 feet." One of these troughs, or wooden aqueducts, near Bush Hill, was 660 feet long, and in width and depth, five feet, and lined with lead. Another similar trough of 462 feet, 17 feet high, conducted the water over a valley near Islington, and was called the boarded river. Owing to leakage, decay, and constant repairs, incident to such structures, they have been superseded by artificial mounds of earth and clay, preserving the natural flow and level of the river. The old Chronicler, Stowe, thus relates the rejoicings, on the occasion of first letting the water of the New River into the cisterns or reservoirs prepared for it. " Being brought to the intended cistern, but not, as yet, the water admitted entrance thereinto ; on Michaelmas day, anno. 1613, being the day when Sir Thos. Myddelton Knt. (brother of Sir Hugh) was elected Lord Maior of London, for the year ensuing ; in the afternoon of the same day, Sir Wm. Swinnerton, Knt., and Lord Maior of London, accompanied with said Sir Thomas, Sir H. Montague, Knt., the Recorder of London, and many of the worthy Aldermen rode to see the cistern and the first issuing of the river thereinto, which was performed in this manner. " A troop of laborers to the number of sixty or more, well apparallelled, and wearing green Monmouth caps all alike, carried spades, shovels, pick-axes, and such like instru- ments of laborious employments, marching after drums twice or thrice about the cisterns, presented themselves before the mount, where the Lord Maior and worthy company stood to behold them, and one man in behalf of all the rest, delivered a speech in verse, narra- ting the progress of the work. It thus concluded : At the Opening of the Sluice : " Now for the fruits then, flow forth precious spring, So long and dearly sought for — and