The memorial stated that the signers had been informed that the water commissioners intended to carry the Oroton water across Harlem River by inverted sy phons built over an embankment of stone, filling up the whole of the natural channel, and with only one archway on the New York side only eighty feet in height, instead of by an aqued\ict bridge, which had already been planned, one hundred and twenty-eight feet above the tide, with arches of eighty fi'et span disposed across the entire width of the river. The city of New York might by the low bridge plan save $509,71.'', the high bridge having been estimated to cost 8935,745, and the inverted syphon plan would cost but $426,027 ; but the memorialists claimed that their rights to the navigation of the river would by the hatter plan be totally destroyed. They showed that prior to the obstructions of Macomb's dam and Cole's bridge the Harlem was navigated to Berrian's Landing and that their ancestors and some of themselves had used the Harlem to ship tlieir produce to market. They also showed that at that early day surveys for the improvement of the navigation of the river had been made at the instance of the corporation of New York ; that Macomb had been guilty of violating his grant by not putting a draw in his dam, and asked the Legislature to compel the water commissioners to direct such an erection across the river aswotild not impede navigation. Counsel were eniployed, wlio gave an opinion that the people had a right to remove the existing nuisances by force, and the result was Mr. Lewis G. Morris' forcible passage of McCoinb's dam, as elsewhere related in this chapter.