[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] Harlem River, that misplaced, misshapen, ridiculous stream — a mere spew of Ilellgate, — worthless for navigation, a hindrance to com-merce, and now found unqualified to generate the required volume of power. This circumstance that the Bronx scheme involved, as one of its essential features, the conversion of the Harlem River into a mere producer of water power — and that in perpetuity — strikingly illus-trates how contemptuously the Harlem and Spuyten Duyvil water-way was rated. When it became certain, in 1831, that the water-supply problem was to find its solution in a continuous aqueduct from the Croton — such a continuous aqueduct being practicable in this case because of the Croton's sufficiently lofty elevation above tide, — il was pro-posed to carry the aqueduct across the Harlem River by a low siphon bridge, as the least expensive work. In that connection no thought was given to possible objections on the score that the con-struction would permanently close the waterway against naviga-556 HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY tion. Tlie navigation of the Harlem was already completely ob-structed by Macomb's Dam, and the addition of a new obstruction did not in the least trouble the New York public mind. But in 1838 a bold stroke by the citizens of our Town of West-chester suddenly compelled the New Yorkers to change their atti-tude toward the Harlem. On March 3 of that year the Westchester THE CROTON WATER CELEBRATION, 1842.