Resolved, That the Counsel of the Board, prepare a memorial to the Legislature, setting forth the wants of the city, in relation to a full and ample supply of water, as necessary for the safety of the city against fire, and to be of a pure and wholesome quality, as necessary for the preservation of the health and lives of our fellow-citizens, and further setting forth, that the Manhattan Company, although chartered in the year 1799, for the express and apparently sole purpose of furnishing the city with these inestimable blessings, have not in the opinion of the Common Council, complied with the conditions of their charter, and stating, that under such circumstances, it has become necessary for the Corporation to do that which the Manhattan Company has failed to perform, and that the Common Council, finding that there exist powers in the acts relating to this Company, authorizing them to take by process of law, all streams of water, and to divert water courses from their natural channels, and also in like manner, to possess themselves of other property, which, however, the Manhattan Company have wholly failed to use, therefore asking a repeal of the said powers now vested in said Company, and the vesting, exclusively, all such powers for the purpose aforesaid in the Corporation of the city of New York, and further enabling the Corporation to raise by loans, a sum not exceeding $2,000,000, for introducing an ample supply of pure and wholesome water.

This was followed by a petition from numerous brewers, complaining of the impure and noxious qualities of the Manhattan water of which this analysis, made in 1831, by the chemist, Chilton, furnishes abundant proof :