Excursion to the Water Works

image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

EXCURSION TO THE WATER WORKS.

The Water Commissioners and Contractors, as we mentioned yesterday, invited the Common Council to inspect the progress of the works yesterday. The Western District members started from the City Hall, and those of the Eastern District from Peck Slip, and rendezvoused at the Reservoir, Cypress Hills, at half past nine. There were present Commissioners Prentice,¹ Wall,² Wyckoff,³ Sullivan⁴ and Van Voorhies;⁵ the Mayor,⁶ ex-Mayors Smith⁷ and Brush,⁸ Alderman Kalbfleisch,⁹ chairman of the Water committee,¹⁰ and nearly all the Aldermen.

The inspection of the reservoir gave great satisfaction, both as regarded the massiveness and evident durability of the work, and the state of forwardness in which it was found. One section of the reservoir, which will be all that will be required at first, in order to the introduction of the water supply, is within a fortnight’s work of completion—that is, by putting on an adequate amount of labor, the contractors could finish it any time within two weeks. The other section, not being needed this fall, will not be finished until the spring. The gateways are progressing well, and the appearance and solidity of the work was remarked by all hands. The communication, it is understood, is perfected between the city and the reservoir, and the conduit needs very little more labor; so that it is manifestly within the bounds of possibility that the water should arrive this fall. The Commissioners, at least, avow the determination to have it so, and their intention, agreeably to the contract, to extort a forfeit of $50,000 from the contractors, should the supply not be in by November. If there be any hitch or delay, we should judge, from all we can hear, that it will be attributable to the pumping engines, which are not in as forward state as could be desired, though the well is completed.

After inspecting the reservoir the authorities drove out to the furthest of the ponds, thus passing along not only the whole extent of the conduit, but of the line of the proposed canal. The chief object of the excursion was to allow of the Common Council’s seeing the alleged impracticability of making a permanent and durable canal, so as to induce them the more readily to acquiesce in the Commissioners’ recommendation to pay the contractors $135,000 more for building an aqueduct instead. The excavation for the canal has been made, and in some parts puddling has been put down according to the contract, but the contractors say that the nature of the soil defies their attempts to make a solid bottom of puddling. In proof of this they caused a section of the canal, about 100 feet in length, to be dammed up, and three feet of water let into it. A laborer was then sent in with a spade, and it was found that the springs below, or the shelving nature of the sandy soil, had so loosened the pudding​ that it could be dug up by the spadefull.

If this puddling had been rightly made and properly laid down, the experiment may be considered to prove the impracticability of making a satisfactory canal, and the necessity of an aqueduct. This, however, neither the public nor the Common Council had any doubt of. The question at issue between the Common Council and the Commissioners is not as to the desirability of substituting an aqueduct for a canal—on that point all are agreed. But it is doubtful whether the city ought to pay the contractors any more for the aqueduct, than they would have to pay for the canal, as at first agreed upon. The demonstration made of the impossibility of making a durable canal, is held by those Aldermen with whom we have spoken, as a proof that the contractors could easier build the aqueduct, and therefore that they ought to be thankful for the mere permission of the city authorities to make a change, instead of requiring extra pay for making it. The experiment, leaving this impression on the minds of the aldermen, was an injudicious thing for the contractors to have done, in a pecuniary point of view, since it demonstrates that their interest, no less than that of the city, calls for the substitution of the aqueduct for the canal. And if they will themselves be gainers by the change, they will have little ground for claiming extra pay from the city for making it. Such, at least, is the view which we find beginning to prevail among the members of the Common Council.

The party dined in the course of the afternoon at Mr. Ryder’s, at Jamaica, the engineers’ headquarters, and it need not be added that they fared sumptuously. They walked through about a mile of the conduit in the course of the day, and indeed might have driven through it if the tops of the carriages had been taken off. It is proposed, when the inaugural celebration of the Works takes place, to sail in boats all along the length of the conduit, which is of ample size for such an exploit, being about ten feet in diameter.

The reporters not having been favored with an invitation, we are indebted to the courtesy of our friend, Ald. Wilson, for the above statements, the comments and inferences being our own. The party reached the city between eight and nine o’clock, without accident or mischance, and with the consciousness of having had a good time generally.

---