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How the Water Works are Progressing

About This Item

  • Title: How the Water Works are Progressing
  • Date: 2 November 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00688
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 2 November 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Elva Moreno Del Rio Conner Lynn Samantha Gilmore Stephanie Blalock Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "How the Water Works are Progressing." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00688.xml (TEI)
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HOW THE WATER WORKS ARE PROGRESSING.—

The aqueduct, connecting the pump well with the sources of supply, is complete, as are the iron pipes through which the water is to be forced into the reservoir. One portion of the reservoir (it is divided into two equal chambers) is ready to receive the water. Temporary apparatus have been erected at the pump-well, by which it is intended to throw a small stream of water into the reservoir for experimental purposes. This machinery is to be set in motion to-day, when the first instalment of water will be delivered. But the pump-well, steam-engines, and other massive machinery by which the full supply is to be lifted into the reservoir, an elevation of 173 feet, and thence distributed throughout the city, cannot be completed for several weeks, though every branch of the unfinished work is rapidly approaching completion.

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