The Water Supply of Albany. 173 



(§52,514,000,00) ; while the schemes of bringing water 

 from the Lakes of Cumberlund is put down for 250,000,000 

 gallons per day at £13,500,000 ($65,340,000,00). Now 

 these are startling figures but I imagine that all we have 

 to look at is the simple question: — how much shall we 

 have to pay for the water when these schemes are carried 

 out ? Dr. Frankland says : That from the estimates made 

 it actually follows that after expending this enormous 

 amount upon the works, we will be supplied with this very 

 pure water at a less cost than that which we pay at the 

 present moment. In speaking of the present pumping 

 system he says : The gigantic and magnificent engines 

 employed at the present moment for raising this vast vol- 

 ume of water, 100,000,000 gallons daily, are painful for the 

 philosopher to contemplate. You have here a stupendous 

 waste of power in doing over again an amount of work 

 which was previously executed for us gratuitously. The 

 sun, in his prodigality of power, flings up far above the 

 Cross of St. Paul's the daily supply of 100,000 gallons, and 

 we in our imbecility allow it to soil itself by flowiug down 

 again near to the level of the sea, and then we erect im- 

 mense pumping engines and expend 200 tons of coal daily 

 to raise this water a fraction of the height from which we 

 had previously allowed it to fall ; all of this will be saved 

 by the proposed schemes." In nearly all of the larger 

 cities throughout the United States where pumping from 

 the rivers has been resorted to as an early and temporary 

 expedient a distant source of supply has followed. 



With this history before us, the experience of over 2,000 

 years, notwithstanding the recent advances in sanitary 

 science, tracing these fatal epidemics, cholera and typhoid 

 or enteric fevers, as they have been directly traced to the 

 polluted spring and river waters in use at other places, the 

 proposition is now made by the Board of Water Commis- 

 sioners to pump water from the Hudson river. 



