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. Pure and wholesome water, an element indispensable to the wants, comforts, and business of a crowded population, was found within our limits in inadequate quantity ; and at each onward stride of our city, even this stinted allowance decreased in purity, as well as in measure,

until it had become our reproach. A sufficient and permanent supply was to be found only at a great distance, as if to test whether the gifts so bountifully bestowed on us, could incite us to repair the single deficiency. To accomplish the object, it was necessary that formidable physical obstacles should be overcome that capacious and enduring ;

channels of covered masonry should be constructed, rivaling in extent and magnitude, the boasted aqueducts of antiquity, and casting into shade any kindred works of modern times and that, for these purposes, an expenditure should be incurred, exceeding that ;

which was encountered by our State, when she united the Hudson with the Lakes. And such momentous results were to be obtained, not from the resources and co-operation of an entire people, but through the credit and enterprise of a single city, which, though destined, as we cannot doubt, eventually to equal in population and wealth the proudest