On the 1st of June, 1883. the legislature authorized the construction of the necessary works, and on the 21th of June, 1891, the second aqueduct was finished and turned over to the department of public works of New York City. Since 1888 the building of subsidiary basins and reservoirs in Westchester and Putnam Counties has been steadily prosecuted. It was originally proposed to construct the new Croton Dam at Quaker Bridge, but that plan was abandoned, and in August, 1892, the contract was awarded for the Cornell Dam, now approaching completion, about a mile and a half above the Quaker Bridge site. No fewer than seven of the townships of Westchester County have made extensive contributions of land for the purposes of the new works, involving the extinction of several settlements. On this point a recent writer says : "The additional land required for the construction of theNewCroton Reseiwoir has been taken from the Towns of Cortlandt, Yorktown, New Castle, Bedford, Somers, Lewisboro, aud North Salem, in Westchester County, covering an area of 0,398.244 acres. From the Town of Cortlandt, 752.654 acres were taken; from the Town of Yorktown, 1,752.932 acres were taken; from the Town of New Castle, 151.697 acres; from the Town of Bedford, 801.860 acres; from the Town of Lewisboro, 850.23(5 acres; from the Town of North Salem, 351.823 acres; from the Town of Somers, 1,925.012 acres, making a total of 6,398.211 acres. Takings, under provisions of Chapter 490 of the Laws of 1883, were commenced in the years 1892, 1891, 1895, and 1897. " Many attractive residence localities in the territory taken will soon be, if not so already, among the things of the past. What was known as the Village of Katonah, in the Town of Bedford, has become extinct, and is now only a matter of history; its buildings, appraised and sold by order of New York City, have vanished; many of the frame dwellings and business structures were removed, intact,