Chancellor Walworth wrote the opinion ; among other things he said : " The Harlem River is an arm of the sea and a public navigable river; it was a public nuisance to obstruct the navigation thereof without authority of law. The act of the Legislature did not authorize the obstruction of the navigation of the river in the manner in which it was done by the dam in question." He also held that no time runs against a public nuisance.'^

It is fair to Mr. Morris and his associates to state that this overt and bold act on their part has preserved to the city the navigation of the stream, and largely to their efforts is due the fact that some years later the Croton water was brought into the city by the High Bridge and not over a low bridge without a draw, as was first contemplated. On the 3d of May, 1839, the Legislature passed an act directing the water commissioners to construct an aqueduct across the river, with arches and piers. The arches in the channel were to be eighty feet span, and one hundred feet in height above high water-mark to the under side of the arches at the crown, or they might carry the water across by a tunnel under the channel of the river, the top of the tunnel not to be higher than the present bed of the channel.'

Later on, by act of April 16, 1858, the Legislature directed the mayor and aldermen of New York and the supervisors of WestchesterCounty to erect and maintiiin a public free bridge across Harlem River from a point in the city near the terminus of Eighth Avenue to a point in Westchester County at or near the terminus of the Macomb's Dam road. This was the authority for building the present Central Bridge.