near as may be, what amount of money may be necessary to carry the same into effect ; to report an estimate of the probable amount of revenue that will accrue to the city, upon the completion of the work, and the reasons and calculations upon which their opinion and estimates may be founded ; such report to be made and presented to the Common Council of the city on or before the first day of January, 1836."

•This Act was prepared by Myndert Van Schaick, Esq., from materials which he had previously collected for the purpose, and it passed into a Law, and is the one under which, as its main foundation, the work has been constructed.

It was further provided, that " in case the plan adopted by

the Commissioners shall be approved by the Common Council, they shall submit it to the electors to express their assent or refusal to allow the Common Council, to instruct the Commissioners to proceed in the work." The Commissioners who were appointed in 1833, were re-appointed under the Act of the 2d of May, 1834. They immediately entered upon the duties of their office, thoroughly re-examined their former work, and decided that the Croton River was the only source that would furnish an adequate supply of water for present and future purposes. In making these examinations they employed, as Engineers, David B. Douglass, John Martineau and George W. Cartwright, Esquires. Various plans were proposed for conveying the water to the city, and estimates made of the cost of the work constructed by either of these plans, but the one recommended by the Commissioners, and that for which a preference was expressed by the Engineers, Messrs. Martineau and Douglass, was a closed Aqueduct of masonry. These gentlemen each made an estimate of the cost of bringing the water of the Croton River to the city of New- York by a closed Aqueduct of masonry, and the Water Commissioners offered, as the true cost of the work, an average of the