224 Report on the Water Supply of Albany, 



of supply is from the rainfall and not from any hidden 

 fountains beneath the rocks of the Helderberg. 



Finally, we may refer to the Hudson river as a perma- 

 nent source of supply. It has been proposed to take the 

 water from the river above the city, and raise it by a 

 pumping engine to the height of the Bleecker reservoir 

 and thence distribute it to the city. This course is per- 

 fectly feasible by a large outlay and constant expenditure 

 of money ; a second engine being necessarily required to 

 be in readiness against accident to the working one. The 

 quantity of water is abundant at all seasons, but the quality 

 we regard as entirely unfit for ordinary domestic purposes. 



The entire drainage of the city of Troy with its manu- 

 factories, and the waste material from the factories on the 

 Poestenkill and Wynantskill, the sewage and factory 

 refuse of all kinds from Cohoes, Waterford and Lansing- 

 burgh, are poured into the river within eight miles above 

 Albany. 



We have, thus, at the present time, emptied into the 

 Hudson river directly, the excretions of nearly 100,000 

 human beings, besides the poisons and impurities from 

 the manufactories. 



Besides all this, we have the water of the Mohawk, 

 which carries the sewage and factory refuse of all kinds 

 from Rome, Utica, Little Falls, Schenectady, and all the 

 smaller towns along the valley, with a population of 

 another hundred thousand people, to which must be added 

 that of the villages and numerous factories on the Oriskany 

 and Sauquoit creeks. There are probably twenty manu- 

 factories of various kinds on each of those streams, and 

 several on East Canada creek and other streams which 

 empty into the Mohawk. This stream, loaded with all 

 that is soluble of these impurities, and at a pretty high 

 temperature during the summer, is emptied into the Hud- 

 son river at a point about eight miles above the city of 



