"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 ;

mid sometimes part of the river, when raised by a considerable freshet, has run over part of this meadow and emptied itself into the Harlem river. From these reasons, then, it is obvious, that by building a dam five feet high across the Bronx, and below where the first mentioned spring empties itself into, and by digging a canal four hundred yards in length, through the meadow, the whole of the Bronx might be, if necessary, diverted from its old route and thrown in to Harlem river, and about eight miles distant from the City Hall."

The spring to which he alludes, is the Morrissania creek. The point at which the work was to commence is fifty feet above tide, and the City Hall was the old building in Wall-street. He also says :

"When I first interested myself on this subject, I was in hopes a place sufficiently high might have been found, from whence the waters of the Bronx could have been conducted to New York, in pipes of conduit, without any previous machinery but ;