[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] to the legislature for authority to borrow |2,000,000, the sum es-timated as necessary to accomplish the object resolved upon. But the legislature discreetly declined to sanction the raising of such an amount " until it should be satisfactorily ascertained that the object in view, both as to the quantity and quality of water, could be accomplished by the expenditure proposed." A certain appre-hension was felt that the supply obtainable from the Bronx might in time prove insufficient. It was in consequence of this cautious attitude of the legislature that, as already noticed, Colonel Clinton was called upon, in November of the same year, to undertake a final investigation of the questions involved. His instructions were "to proceed and examine the continuation of the route from Chatterton Hill, near White Plains, to Croton River, or such other sources in that vicinity from which he may suppose that an inexhaustible sup-ply of pure' and wholesome water for the City of New York may be obtained." In entering upon his very important commission Colonel Clinton labored under great disadvantages. No survey, even experimental, of a direct route from the Croton had ever been made. Attention had centered upon the Bronx River as the predestined source of sup-ply, with incidental feeders from the Sawmill and Byram.