A committee of the fire department, made a searching examination of the merits of the old proposal to utilize the Bronx water, and submitted a favorable report, which was approved by the common council ; and the latter body, in January, 1832, applied to the legislature for authority to borrow |2,000,000, the sum estimated as necessary to accomplish the object resolved upon. But the legislature discreetly declined to sanction the raising of such an amount " until it should be satisfactorily ascertained that the object in view, both as to the quantity and quality of water, could A certain apprebe accomplished by the expenditure proposed." hension was felt that the supply obtainable from the Bronx might in time prove insufficient. It was in consequence of this cautious attitude of the legislature that, as already noticed, Colonel Clinton was called upon, in November of the same year, to undertake a final investigation of the questions involved. His instructions were "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 inexhaustible supply of pure' and wholesome water for the City of New York may be obtained." In entering upon his very important commission Colonel Clinton labored under great disadvantages. No survey, even experimental, of a direct route from the Croton had ever been made. Attention had centered upon the Bronx River as the predestined source of supply, with incidental feeders from the Sawmill and Byram. The public mind shrank from such a tremendous and seemingly fantastic proceeding as the construction of an aqueduct from the far distant Croton; whereas the Bronx, running straight down into the Harlem River, seemed to have been appointed by nature for the exact emergency. Previously to the sending out of Colonel Clinton, the only thought bestowed upon the Croton in this connection had been with reference to the possible joining of it to the Bronx by means of an artificial canal; and surveys had actually been made to that end, which, however, afforded no satisfaction.