James Palmer was the chairman of the committee, and brought good practical sense as well as an honest reputation to the support of the measure. The plan was fully discussed was

CROTON AQ.UEDUCT. 197

pronounced by some to be visionary, and it was declared by a member then in the city councils, that water enough could not be procured to fill a tea-kettle, much less the tanks and pipes ! The reply to that argument was, " Give us the tank and pipes, and we !

to fill them, if we have to carry the water in quart bottles." engage The report was adopted, the tank constructed, the pipes laid down, and the hydrants erected. No public cisterns were ever afterwards made. Every subsequent year added length to the line of pipes, until we now have 130 miles, and the Croton River flows into that tank, and through those pipes and hydrants, erected by the appropriation of that night. Fortuitous circumstances reserved for the gentleman, who in 1829, in his place in the Common Council, gave the pledge, " that in case the well to be dug on the point of the rock on 13th street would not fill the tank and pipes in Broadway and the Bowery with water, that they should be filled, if need be, with quart bottles," 13 years afterwards, on the 4th of July, 1842, to open the gates of the reservoir and fill these very pipes and " this very tank, not from quart bottles," but from the Croton River, passing through the whole line of the Croton Aqueduct !