wide 16 feet below the top, and 76 feet wide at the bottom :

the cornice projects on the outside and the coping on the inside so as to make the width of the top 21 feet. An iron railing bounds the outside and inside of the walk around the top. The outside of the Reservoir is built on a slope of one sixth its height, or two inches to the foot, and an Egyptian cornice projects at the top of the main walls and the pilasters.

At the entrance on the 5th Avenue a stairway leads up to the top of the Reservoir. Terraces are built around at the foot of the walls and

covered with grass, giving a rich finish to the work. This Reservoir may be considered the termination of the Croton Aqueduct, and is distant from the Fountain Reservoir on the Croton, forty and a half miles. The whole cost of the work, exclusive of the pipes in the city below the Distributing Reservoir, is about 9,000,000 dollars. Adding to this the cost of pipes and arrangements

for distributing the water in the city, will make the total cost of supplying the city of New- York with water about 12,000,000 dollars* The water was introduced into the Distributing Reservoir on the 4th of July, 1842, and the event was hailed by the citizens of New-York with an interest scarcely less than that pervading the whole American people at the remembrance of the event, the anniversary of which, was on that day celebrated. At an hour when the firing of guns and the ringing of bells had aroused but few from their slumbers, and ere the rays of the morning sun had gilded the city domes, the waters of the Croton gushed up into the Reservoir and wandered about its bottom as if to examine the magnificent structure ; or to find a resting place in the temple towards which they had made a pilgrimage.