However grateful this may be to our feelings, it does not follow that it is equally conducive to healthfor whatever degree ;

of purity it may now possess, the period is not very remote, when from the natural increase of the city, these springs must be subject to those contaminations which have already rendered so many wells unfit for use, an evil that is daily increasing, and to which no effectual remedy can be applied ; this to me has ever appeared an insurmountable objection. The idea of supplying a large city with pure water, from a reservoir in -its centre, has always seemed very strange to me." The Bronx river was the source whence both Dr. Brown and Mr. Weston recommended that the supply of water should be drawn.

CROTONAdUEDUCT. 93

Dr. B., however, greatly underrated the quantity needed, and still more greatly, the

expense of the work. He considered 362,800 gallons as an ample daily supply, and $200.000 as the utmost expenditure required for bringing the Bronx to the city, for laying down twenty miles of pipes in the streets, and erecting two public fountains. His plan is thus briefly described in his memorial :

"About half a mile below Williams' Bridge, over the Bronx, is a piece of low meadow ground, in which rise two springs, one of which runs easterly and empties itself into the Bronx, and not more than four hundred yards from its origin. The other spring empties itself into the Harlem river, traversing a distance of about six miles. The place on which those springs originate, are not more than five feet above the level of the Bronx ;