HYDROLOGY OF NEW YORK 



677 



street 442 feet deep, which yielded 44,000 gallons per day. In 

 1834 the city increased the depth of the Thirteenth street well 100 

 feet, thereby increasing the supply from this source to 21,000 gal- 

 lons per day. Nevertheless, the supply from these various sources 

 was so very limited that considerable water was brought in daily 

 from wells in the country, selling at an average price of $1.25 per 

 hogshead; 415 hogsheads of water were also daily imported from 

 wells in Brooklyn to supply shipping. 



The inadequacy of the supply led to examinations for the intro- 

 duction of water from other sources, and in 1835 a plan for pro- 

 curing water from the Croton river was adopted by the Common 

 Council and later ratified by a popular vote of 17,330 in favor of, 

 to 5963 against. The work of construction was immediately begun 

 and water was introduced into the city through the Croton 

 aqueduct in June, 1842. The population at that time was 375,000. 

 The aqueduct then constructed is still available for use, with a 

 carrying capacity, after sixty-two years of service, of 90,000,000 

 gallons per day. 



For twenty years after the introduction of the Croton water the 

 natural flow of the Croton river assisted by the storage of Croton 

 lake of 2,000,000,000 gallons (266,666,000 cubic feet) supplied 

 the needs of the city, although it became evident at an early date 

 that ultimately provision would have to be made for storing 

 flood-flows. In 1857 the Croton Aqueduct Board caused a topo- 

 graphical survey of the entire Croton catchment area to be made, 

 and the number of sites for storage reservoirs were selected at 

 that time. The first reservoir constructed was at Boyds Corners, 

 in Putnam county, finished in 1872. Since that time five other 

 storage reservoirs have been built, and another is now building. 

 The storage capacity of these several reservoirs is given on 

 page 380. The safe capacity of the Croton catchment area is esti- 

 mated at 280,000,000 gallons per day. 



Pending the decisions relative to the construction of the new 

 aqueduct on Croton river, the Department of Public Works intro- 

 duced in 1884 a supply from the Bronx and Byram rivers. This 

 supply is conveyed by a pipe-line fifteen miles long and received 

 into a reservoir at Williams Bridge, in the Borough of Bronx, 

 at an elevation of 190 feet above tide. The catchment area from 



