all these expenses, it is believed, of exceeding eight dollars per house. Now if we estimate that we can charge each house, on an average, four dollars, we have $140,000, nearly double the whole interest. If it should be thought that four dollars is too much for some houses, it may be remarked, that several families, in limited circumstances, generally reside in one house, and that this being the case, the landlord might well afford to pay four dollars per annum ; but as this calculation of four dollars per house, is an average charge, it will be seen that some houses can be charged more than double that rate, while the rate of others can be proportionably reduced. We should have, also, what might be chargeable on livery stables, breweries, dying establishments, manufactories of all kinds, making of mortar for building-, and the supply- ing our shipping, to create a sinking fund for the final liquidation of the loan ; and we should not forget that the income referred to is from nearly our present population, which is rapidly increasing, which increase the works would supply with little increased expense. The New River establishment at London charges all dwellings at the rate of five per cent. on the rent of the same, which appears to be a good criterion to regulate the charge, and this rate would produce a revenue to the city. The committee also suggest that the superintendence and execution of the work they propose, requiring, as it would, uniformity and steadiness of views, and close attention, should not be confided to members of the Common Council, who are continually chang- ing, but to a Board of Commissioners, appointed and paid for the purpose. CROTON AQUEDUCT. 1V3 The Report concludes with the draft of a law embodying the views therein expressed, and asking authority to borrow two millions of dollars. In January of next year, 1832, the Common Council approved the report and the accompanying draft of a law, and resolved that, on the law being passed by the Legisla- ture, they would undertake to supply the city with pure and wholesome water. The bill thus sent, did not become a law, owing to the unwillingness of the Legisla- ture to authorise the raising of such a sum of money, until it should be satisfactorily as- certained that the object in view, both as to the quantity and quality of water, could be accomplished by the expenditure proposed. The project, however, was too far advanced, and the city was too much committed, to draw back. Another lingering effort to procure water on the Island itself, was encou- raged by an appropriation, in October, of the sum of $1000, to defray the cost of further examinations ; but of course, nothing satisfactory came of it, and the reports of Dr. Brown, made in 1798, and of Mr. Weston, in 1799, being reprinted by order of the Com- mon Council, and both of these ridiculing the idea of supplying a populous city with water from its own bowels, the minds of all reverted to the streams of Westchester. On 10th November, the Joint Committee on Fire and Water, passed this resolution: Resolved, That Colonel De Witt Clinton be requested and authorised 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 inex- haustible supply of pure and wholesome water for the city of New- York may be obtained; also, his opinion of the best mode of conducting the same to the city, and the probable expense, as well as the practicability, of bringing the water across Harlem River, and the most suitable point where the same shall be, and the best mode of doing it, and that he be authorised to employ two assistants to aid him in the undertaking. JAMES PALMER, Chairman, CHARLES HENRY HALL, WILLIAM MANDEVILLE, GEORGE W. BRUEN, PETER S. TITUS, DENNIS M'CARTHY. On the 22d December, Col. Clinton presented his Report, which is very voluminous, but necessarily from the fact that the routes he recommends, were not surveyed, his esti- mates are conjectural. He examines in detail, all plans previously proposed for supplying the city, and comes to the conclusion deliberately, that on the Croton should the city rely ; a conclu- sion, which, differing as it did from that of all antecedent engineers, and from the views of Committees of the Common Council, is creditable to his sagacity and self-reliance. 29 114 MEMOIR OF THE The great inducements stated in the Report, for resorting to the Croton, are, the pu- rity of its waters, their unfailing abundance for any possible population in the city, and the elevation of their bed, which would