spirit which, looking beyond the present, is content to endure and labor for remotest

generations.

In effect, water might have been obtained adequate to the actual wants of the

city at very much less cost, leaving to posterity the care of providing for its own need ; but the more generous view prevailed, and, in deciding as the people of New

York by their votes did, to construct an Aqueduct like those which, in attesting the

grandeur of ancient Rome, still pour rivers into the streets of the fallen city,

" LONE MOTHER OF DEAD EMPIRES !"

vi PREFACE.

they furnished an admirable illustration of the public spirit and wise forecast of freemen.

In prosecuting the investigations necessary for this work which, after all, is

much in the nature of a compilation such time only could be devoted to it, as

might be snatched from the engrossing and Sysiphean labors of a daily newspaper.

Nevertheless, it is hoped that in the Preliminary Essay, in which a cursory examination and description is attempted of the chief ancient and modern aqueducts,

as well as of the devices for supplying themselves with water in use among the earliest peoples nothing material to the information of the general reader is omitted.

The Memoir of the Croton Aqueduct is compiled from official reports and documents, as for the most part is the sketch of the numerous attempts which, from an

early day, were made by the citizens of New York, to insure a supply of pure and wholesome water.