be applied ; this to me has ever appeared an insurmountable objection. The idea of supplying a large city with pure water, from a reservoir in -its centre, has al- ways seemed very strange to me." The Bronx river was the source whence both Dr. Brown and Mr. Weston recommend- ed that the supply of water should be drawn. CROTONAdUEDUCT. 93 Dr. B., however, greatly underrated the quantity needed, and still more greatly, the expense of the work. He considered 362,800 gallons as an ample daily supply, and $200.000 as the utmost expenditure required for bringing the Bronx to the city, for laying down twenty miles of pipes in the streets, and erecting two public fountains. His plan is thus briefly described in his memorial : "About half a mile below Williams' Bridge, over the Bronx, is a piece of low mea- dow ground, in which rise two springs, one of which runs easterly and empties itself into the Bronx, and not more than four hundred yards from its origin. The other spring empties itself into the Harlem river, traversing a distance of about six miles. The place on which those springs originate, are not more than five feet above the level of the Bronx ; mid sometimes part of the river, when raised by a considerable freshet, has run over part of this meadow and emptied itself into the Harlem river. From these reasons, then, it is obvious, that by building a dam five feet high across the Bronx, and below where the first mentioned spring empties itself into, and by digging a canal four hundred yards in length, through the meadow, the whole of the Bronx might be, if necessary, diverted from its old route and thrown in to Harlem river, and about eight miles distant from the City Hall." The spring to which he alludes, is the Morrissania creek. The point at which the work was to commence is fifty feet above tide, and the City Hall was the old building in Wall-street. He also says : — "When I first interested myself on this subject, I was in hopes a place sufficiently high might have been found, from whence the waters of the Bronx could have been conducted to New York, in pipes of conduit, without any previous machinery ; but I am now satisfied no such place exists, for although water in an open aqueduct will run with tolerable fluency, having only six inches fall in the mile, yet in a pipe, or conduit, it requires five feet fall to produce the same effect; and even this fall is insufficient where the pipes of conduit are of considerable length and of small diameter ,for the friction that is occasioned by the sides of the pipe of conduit, is in a quadruple ratio with its length. Now as the ground in the city of New York, to which water ought to be con- veyed to a principal reservoir, is about forty feet above high tide, which is ten feet only be- low the level of the river Bronx, where it may be diverted, I consider it a fall perfectly inadequate to any design of conveying the water in a line of pipes ; it then becomes ne- cessary, that the water of the Bronx should be elevated by the means of some ma- chinery." By this plan the water was to be elevated eighty feet above the level of Harlem river ; the machinery for the purpose, was to be propelled by the surplus water from the Bronx, which was estimated to discharge 1200 cubic feet, or 7400 ale gallons per minute. There was to be one water wheel of 20 feet diameter, and four forcing pumps of six inch bore, which would, it was calculated, pump up the required quantity of 362,800 gallons in ' the 24 hours. This was to be delivered into a reservoir at the Dove, a public house about five miles from the city, and thence conveyed by pipes, to a distributing reservoir to be constructed in the Park, or some, then open ground, north of the Hospital, 24 94 MEMOIROFTHE Mr. Weston's plan was to take the water of the Bronx river, at Lorillard's snuff factory, to raise a dam six feet high, which would turn the water through a low swamp into Mill brook, to follow the north bank for three miles, and then to cross in an aqueduct to its op- posite side, and continue that level to the Harlem river. He states the distance to be from the Bronx to the Park, 14 miles and 7 furlongs, and the descent twenty-three feet. He says, " It appears from examinations that have been recently made, that the Bronx is suf- ficiently elevated above the highest parts of the