The elevated situation of the Croton will allow the artizan to make it applicable and certain to give a copious supply of water without hazard The plan proposed, he says, could not be effected but at an expense of more than four millions of dollars. It would still be insufficient for a permanent water power. It would destroy the navigation, and it would not benefit the shoals near Albany he is of opinion, there- ;

fore, that it would do all harm and no good ; it would dissipate the funds that might ensure a copious supply of water from another source, and which could be relied on, provided the work shall be properly executed.

Thus much, the Commissioners have deemed it expedient to say on this important Common Council to decide, whether the inquiry shall be further subject, leaving it to the prosecuted, or whether they will adopt the plan which the Commissioners may recommend pursuant to the letter and evident intentions of the act of the Legislature, by which they have been guided in their examinations and researches, and under which they hold their office.

The Commissioners then proceed to present a synopsis of the report made by Mr, Douglas, Mr. Martineau, and Mr. Cartwright, as well as the results of information obtained by them from Mr. A. Stein, relating to the route, modes of construction, and cost

134 MEMOIR OF THfi

thereof, of an aqueduct from the Croton, that on all hands being adopted as the only ad* visable plan. As in a subsequent part of this Memoir, we shall have occasion to detail with some minuteness, the particulars, on all these heads, of the route finally adopted and perfected, our readers will feel that analagous details here would be superfluous. Suffice it here to say, that upon striking an average of the various estimates of the cost of introducing and distributing the Croton water, the Commissioners report it at five and a half millions of dollars.