The bill thus sent, did not become a law, owing to the unwillingness of the Legislature to authorise the raising of such a sum of money, until it should be satisfactorily ascertained that the object in view, both as to the quantity and quality of water, could be

accomplished by the expenditure proposed. The project, however, was too far advanced, and the city was too much committed, to draw back. Another lingering effort to procure water on the Island itself, was encouraged by an appropriation, in October, of the sum of $1000, to defray the cost of further examinations but of course, nothing satisfactory came of it, and the reports of Dr. ;

Brown, made in 1798, and of Mr. Weston, in 1799, being reprinted by order of the Common Council, and both of these ridiculing the idea of supplying a populous city with water from its own bowels, the minds of all reverted to the streams of Westchester.

On 10th November, the Joint Committee on Fire and Water, passed this resolution:

Resolved, That Colonel De Witt Clinton be requested and authorised to proceed and examine the continuation of the route from Chatterton Hill, near White plains, to Croton River, or such other sources in that vicinity from which he may suppose that an inexhaustible supply of pure and wholesome water for the city of New- York may be obtained; also, his opinion of the best mode of conducting the same to the city, and the probable expense, as well as the practicability, of bringing the water across Harlem River, and the most suitable point where the same shall be, and the best mode of doing it, and that he be authorised to employ two assistants to aid him in the undertaking. JAMES PALMER, Chairman, CHARLES HENRY HALL, WILLIAM MANDEVILLE, GEORGE W.