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. BRUEN, PETER S. TITUS, DENNIS M'CARTHY.

On the 22d December, Col. Clinton presented his Report, which is very voluminous, but necessarily from the fact that the routes he recommends, were not surveyed, his estimates are conjectural.

He examines in detail, all plans previously proposed for supplying the city, and comes to the conclusion deliberately, that on the Croton should the city rely ; a conclusion, which, differing as it did from that of all antecedent engineers, and from the views of Committees of the Common Council, is creditable to his sagacity and self-reliance.

114 MEMOIR OF THE The great inducements stated in the Report, for resorting to the Croton, are, the purity of its waters, their unfailing abundance for any possible population in the city, and the elevation of their bed, which would give a sufficient head to convey them to the distributing reservoir in the city, at a height sufficient for all purposes of supplying the loftiest dwellings, and of extinguishing fires. Mr. C. had strong confidence in the practicability of delivering the water at 137 feet above tide.