104 MEMOIR OF THE Common Council, in March 1826, was directed to inquire whether " water of the best quality, and in quantity sufficient to supply the wants of the city, cannot be obtained from wells sunk, or to be sunk, on Harlem heights." This led to the incorporation by the next Legislature, in 1827, of a fourth company, called the New- York Well Company. The water was to be procured on the island, by sinking wells in the most elevated grounds. The Company made several attempts to procure water, but being satisfied by their experiments of the impracticability of the undertaking, the enterprise was abandoned. The hope next embraced was that of Artesian Wells. Mr. Levi Disbrow had about this time succeeded, by boring to a great depth through earth and rock, in procuring a copious supply of good water, at the Manhattan Reservoir, corner of Bleecker and Mercer streets. The diameter of this perforation is eight inches ; its depth, 442 feet. A tube extends from the top to near the bottom, in order to exclude any springs that may be met with in the descent, and of which the quality might impair that of the main supply. Mr. Disbrow made several other borings, varying from 72 to 250 feet in depth.

Encouraged by his success, Mr. Disbrow proposed to supply the city by an Artesian well and reservoir in each ward. But, inasmuch as the product of these wells is limited, even supposing, what is by no means certain, that the multiplication of them at different levels would not diminish the supply, and drain the sources of the more shallow to the deeper perforations, it seemed obvious that the cost of such an enterprise, taken in connection with the uncertainty of the result as to the adequate supply, forbade the undertaking.