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nature and man have arranged for the needs of the great city. But these
are so insufficient that, although it is believed we could draw
250,000,000 gallons a day even in dry weather, we are going to take into
our system three more reservoirs, which will allow us to store
13,000,000,000 gallons more than we can store at present. And as even
these will not long supply our growing needs, we are about to build the
greatest dam the world ever saw. It is already called the Quaker Bridge
dam. It is to be built five miles south of Croton Lake, back of the town
of Sing Sing, where the great State-prison is. It will be a great
pyramidal-shaped wall of solid masonry 264 feet high, and 1500 feet
long, and will cost, the officials think, at least $6,000,000. When it
is finished, a magnificent rich farming country will be flooded and
turned into one immense glass of water for old Father Knickerbocker (as
we call our patron saint) and his children. The water that will bank up
against that dam will rise up over many, many farms and houses and barns
and villages for a distance of no less than sixteen miles, and the
present dam at Croton Lake will be thirty-five feet under the surface of
the water. Now we store 17,000,000,000 gallons of water, but then we
will have a liquid treasure of 84,600,000,000 gallons.

We are apt to think about water as free because Nature evidently
intended that it should cost no more than fresh air. And so it is free,
so long as we are satisfied to use very little, and to go and dip up
that very little out of a stream and carry it to our homes. But when
we demand the full fruits of modern civilization, when we insist
upon the building of huge dams and vast reservoirs and tunnels and
pumping-stations, we must buy the water they bring in order to pay for
the cost of the convenience. What we pay in New York amounts to about
$1.75 a head for every man, woman, and child in the city, or more than
$3,000,000 a year. This great tax, called the "water rents," is used to
pay the interest on the debt we owe for our aqueduct, to keep the system
in repair, and to swell a sinking fund which we have established. The
water rents are not paid according to the amount of water each person
uses, but for the quantity that passes into each house, office building,
factory, brewery, and stable. The house-owners each pay between four
dollars and eighteen dollars a year, and the men who use great
quantities--such as brewers, makers of