The contractors for the new dam in the Croton, for instance, were bound to have it in such an advanced stage by 1st November of this year, as to throw two feet water from the lake into the aqueduct. The next disappointment was in the bridge over the Harlem, arisin g from not finding, as the soundings had indicated, a rocky bottom on which to rest the foundation of some of the piers of the bridge. Nevertheless, the Commissioners and the

engineers still adhered to the opinion that the 4th of July, 1842, would witness the introduction of the Croton into the houses and fountains of the city.

The Report of the Commissioners on 17th of January, 1842, thus exhibits the state of the work :

CROTON AQ.UEDUCT. Of the first division, the aqueduct part is finished, and was nearly so on the 1st of January 1841. The only part of this division remaining unfinished, is the dam. After the carrying away of the earthen embankment, comprising a major part of the dam, the undersigned concurred with the engineers in the advantage of constructing the new dam on an entirely different plan from the one previously constructed and instead of the ;

extended earthen embankment, a continuous stone dam, laid in hydraulic cement, was decided on to be constructed entirely across the river, so that the overfall, or apron of the ;

dam, will be of the same extent as the natural breadth of the river. The length of the new part of the dam (the mason work of the old dam not having been carried away) is 180 feet; so that with the mason work of the first erected dam, which still remains, it will make a dam of an overfall of 260 feet. The dam, when completed, will be about 50 feet high, having a base of masonry 65 feet wide and banked in, on the up stream side, with an em- ;