Proceedings of the Polytechnic Association. 967 



sideration, and to connect these cities in a permanent manner, as a 

 contingent benefit, and to provide the most ample facilities for ware- 

 houses and trajishipment, as a connnercial benefit and a source of 

 direct remuneration, together with the proper tolls on vehicles and 

 foot passengers ; and I submitted my views to him to this elfect, 

 under date of December 9th, 1S58. 



This plan, for which a number of notes were collected at the time, 

 has been occasionally alluded to in public prints, though chiefly 

 as incidental to other matters. More recently, in a report made 

 January, 1867, to the Hon, J. P. Goodsell, State engineer, on a 

 " Survey for the improvement of the Hudson river and Champlain 

 canal," it was thus mentioned : 



"New York harbor itself, however, has one defect for which 

 engineering science controls a simple and advantageous remedy. 

 The present ship channel at Sandy Hook is obs-tructed by bars, and 

 is not properly adapted to the requirements of so important a harbor 

 in depth, direction, or permanency ; and from Staten Island to the 

 upper part of New York, the Jersey shore on one side and the wharf 

 slips on the other, are places of deposit for the silt of the Hudson river 

 and Newark bay, which enters its lower basin from the west. 



" This arises from the peculiar conformation of the harbor, which 

 connects with Long Island sound by the East river, and through the 

 action of the flood tides, which seek this short outlet, the proper vol- 

 ume of the Hudson is diverted from its natural course, its velocity 

 impeded, and its suspended matter deposited at points of great com- 

 mercial importance, with objectionable results, while the entire East 

 river front of the city is subjected to a continual alteration of power- 

 ful tidal currents, which impede the usual -operations of .commerce 

 and ferry transit, and become dangerous in the winter season by ice 

 fields, diverted from their proper direction and carried around the 

 Battery, 



'' The remedy for this is to be found in the application of prin- 

 ciples which obtain in all similar cases, and which have been sufii- 

 ciently tested on the same river, as on many others, B_y shutting off 

 the East river inlet at some convenient point, more directly near the 

 Fulton ferry, or near Houston street, the entire volume of the river 

 supply, represented by a stream of over 800 feet wide, twenty feet deep^ 

 and five mile current, would go out to sea and make its ov/n natural 

 and effectual channel, independently of all artificial or temporary aids, 



"A good and substantial dyke or pier, about 400 feet wide, with 



