One of Barnum’s first acquisitions was a model of that object of national pride, Niagara Falls. The falls were eighteen inches high, and everything else in the model was in proportion. Into this model Barnum arranged to have water pumped, and he advertised widely “The Great Model of Niagara Falls, With Real Water,” and many couples who could not afford a honeymoon visited the Museum instead, attracted by Barnum’s promise of real water. Soon after his advertisements appeared in the newspapers Barnum was ordered to come before the Croton Board of Water Commissioners. In that year, 1842, water first flowed through the Croton Reservoir, for after the great fire of 1835 the citizens were aroused to the necessity for a sufficient supply of water, and the Croton Reservoir was the result. It was opened on the Fourth of July, 1842, and a seven-mile parade, with red-shirt firemen, torch lights and the other paraphernalia of a monster procession commemorated the occasion. The president of the Board of Water Commissioners informed Barnum that the city could not furnish him with water for a Niagara Falls at twenty-five dollars a year. Barnum asked the president not to believe all he read in the newspapers and showbills and offered to pay one dollar a drop for all the water he used more than one barrelful for his Niagara Falls; he explained the operation of the pump behind the scenes, and the water commissioners enjoyed the deception. In his autobiography Barnum thought it necessary to excuse himself by means of the argument that if visitors found his Niagara Falls “small potatoes” they had the rest of the magnificent Museum for twenty-five cents admission. It was always his opinion that any misrepresentation was justified if he gave patrons what they had not come for after they entered his Museum. Another of Barnum’s early improvements of such a nature was what he advertised as an “aerial garden,” which consisted of two cedar plants, ten pots of wilted flowers, and several small tables, located on the roof of the Museum building, where ice cream was served.