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The Water Works

About This Item

  • Title: The Water Works
  • Date: 18 October 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00689
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 18 October 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. "The Water Works." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 17 July 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00689.xml (TEI)
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The Water Works.—

We have the most cheerful intelligence in regard to the progress of the Water Works, and there appears to be a well-founded prospect of a supply by the 25th of next month, or between that and the 1st of December. The gates have been closed at Baisely's Pond, and the water is now accumulating. The conduit from Baisely's Pond1 to the pump well at East New York will also be completed in a day or two. Experiments are to be made for testing the question whether five million gallons can be optained per day by the simple over-running of the pond. The pump well is completed, and a temporary engine will be placed of a capacity sufficient to raise two millions of gallons in twenty four hours, the massive pumps which are calculated to throw sixteen millions of gallons in a day not being in a sufficient state of forwardness. The reservoirs at Ridgewood are rapidly approaching completion. One is all ready for the water and this will be used at first. The great main from Ridgewood,2 which is to be connected with the pipes laid in the city, will be finished this week. In the Eastern District all the pipes have been laid except that through 1st street, and the completion of this will not take long. The other day, several of the commissioners walked some three or four miles through the conduit commencing at Baisely's Pond. They are determined to have the water here this fall, as it is calculated that the increase in the value of property consequent upon that event will be five per cent at least, which is more than the entire cost of the works.

Notes:

1. Baisley's Pond was a major supply reservoir for the Brooklyn Water Works located in what is today the borough of Queens. It was a former mill pond, named after its owner David Baisley, who had sold it to the local water authorities in 1852. It was also occasionally referred to as Baisley's Pond, Jamaica Pond, or Rider's Pond. For a period in 1857, it housed a team of engineers, including Walt's brother Thomas Jefferson Whitman ("Jeff"). [back]

2. Cloacæ is Latin for sewer, and in this particular usage, refers to the main Roman sewer system. Whitman had a known interest in the engineering marvels of Rome, and explicitly connected Brooklyn’s proposed water system to that of the great empire on several occasions. He underlines a section on Roman city sewers and the Cloacæ on his annotated copy of an article on "Early Roman History" from the period. [back]

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