Varian, on the ground that it would close streets, which, according to the map of the city, were at some future period to be opened in the direction of the arches to be dispensed with. The Commissioners, in the report under consideration, examine at length and in detail, the objections of the Mayor, which they thought might all be obviated even admitting, which they do not, that the lines traced on the map of the city as future streets, thereby became in law and fact streets,

by running a street parallel with the aqueduct, at which these future streets would terminate, and along which the travel might pass a short distance till the occurrence of an arch, of which three were still to remain.

Neither Board of the Common Council took into consideration this veto of the Mayor, and the Commissioners, deeming that the responsibility for the work and its construction, was legally with themselves, persisted in their plan of dispensing with the three arches,

CROTONAQ.UEDUCT. 183

thereby saving an expenditure of $52,000, subject to the deduction of $4500 only, for damages paid to the contractors for the change of plan. The high bridge over the Harlem River, reappears in this report, as a difficult, costly, and not necessary work and inasmuch as the plan agreed upon by the former Commissioners, was not to continue the grade line of the aqueduct, but to descend on the Westchester side some 14 feet with the water in iron pipes, and after passing it over the river in a horizontal line, to raise it on the New York side within 2i feet of the elevation from which it was taken on the north shore, this report recurs to the low bridge, as safer, much