President, and Gentlemen of the Board of Water Commissioners : In receiving, with my associates of the Croton Aqueduct Board, the custody of the work committed to us, I take the occasion to convey to you, the thanks of your fellowcitizens, for the zeal, perseverance and fidelity with which your duty has been performed, and to congratulate you on the virtual completion of the work entrusted to you, and your predecessors in office. Of the manner in which both have discharged their respective tasks, the results we this day celebrate, speak in most emphatic praise. The science and skill of your able engineers, have excluded all errors of combination and construction,

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and met the highest expectations of the public. In mechanical execution, the work appears to defy the test of scrutiny, as completely as we trust it is destined to resist the assaults of time. Contrary to predictions, ventured on the subject, its efficiency in delivering the water, not only equals but largely exceeds the mathematical estimate. The island on which New York is built, is peculiarly fitted for the site of a great city. Blessed with a salubrious climate surrounded by waters forming a noble harbor, and constituting links of natural or practicable inland communication with adjacent sister States, with the rich territory of our own State, and with the boundless and fertile

regions of the West connected by a short and uninterrupted passage with the ocean, the

pathway from foreign climes, and from the extensive sea-board of our confederate States, and possessing, within easy reach, almost every necessary for construction and supply, our position combines natural advantages for a large community, devoted to the prosecution of commerce and the arts, unsurpassed by those of any other spot on the globe. In the list of these endowments, one essential, only, appeared to be absent.