Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

THE NEW CROTON DAM AND RESERVOIR. (Photo, P. P. Pullis.} The Dam is, next to the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the largest masonry structure in tho world. It impounds 32,000,000,000 gallons of water. THE WATER SUPPLY OF NEW YORK CITY BY JOHN GEORGE LEIGH. ON June 21, 1907, on the side of one of many mountains soon to be perfor- ated by a mammoth aqueduct, Air. M‘Clennan, Mayor of New York, cut the first sod of perhaps the greatest municipal engin- eering work ever undertaken. The enterprise in question is the third of a series, all designed, within the comparatively short period of seventy years, with a single object—that of furnishing New York with a reliable and, in the estimation of its popula- tion, sufficient water supply. Reasons for New York’s haste and anxiety to secure a further source of water supply will be found in the city’s geographical posi- tion, its rapid and continu- ous growth, and, it must be added, its people’s ungoverned and apparently ungovernable Shut in on the east by the the the laws of New Jersey from tapping any near source of supply on the west. To the east of the Croton watershed is that of Housatonic River, capable of yielding an abundance of excellent water ; but this is in another State, Connecticut, and therefore ex- cluded from consideration. The present population of Greater New York is estimated at four and a half millions, and the average annual growth is means, if the same increase is continued—and of this there seems every likelihood—that the population at the end be 5,260,000, and its water consumption 700,000,000 gallons a day, or more than 200,000,000 in excess of the present available supply. This latter is very largely derived from the watershed of the Croton River, situated about 35 miles north of the city, and having an area VOL. in. 115,000. This Growth of Population. of 1915 will New York’s Demand for Water. wastefulness. Atlantic Ocean, New York is prevented by (1,408)