Myndert Van Schaick, Esq., being a member of the Board of Aldermen at that time, was familiar with the question of a supply of pure and wholesome water, and holding the situation of Treasurer of the Board of Health, became deeply interested in the measure, and urged it as a matter of the deepest importance to the permanence, welfare and financial interests of the city, that every method should be taken to investigate and probe the subject which cautious men could adopt, and his efforts in the subsequent measures and provisions of law in relation to it are of the same character. In December, 1832, De Witt Clinton, Esq., of the United States Corps of Engineers, made a report pursuant to a request of the Committee on Fire and Water, in which, after stating the substance of the several reports in favor of the Bronx as the source of supply, he arrives at the conclusion, that an adequate supply can only be obtained from the Croton River. He proposed to take the waters of the Croton at Pine’s bridge, which he stated to be 183 feet above the level of the Hudson; to conduct the water in an open Aqueduct, following the line of the Croton and Hudson Rivers, and cross Harlem River on an arch of 138 feet in height, and 1,000 feet in length. The whole cost he estimated at $2,500,000. It does not appear, however, that any levels were run, or survey made by Mr. Clinton, of the route he recommended; but, that he depended on the information of others, together with his personal observation, for the subject matter of his report. In a report made to the Board of Aldermen in January, 1833, it was suggested that the failure of the law asked for the year previous, was in consequence of a want of sufficient information to warrant the opinion of the feasibility of the project, and it recommended that immediate application should be made to the Legislature, asking for the appointment of a Board of Commissioners, with full powers to examine all the plans proposed, to cause surveys, and to estimate the probable expense of supplying the city of New-York with water. The Committee recommended that the Commissioners should be appointed by the Governor and Senate, and that their number should consist of five, “inasmuch as the object of their appointment is to settle conclusively the plan to be adopted, and the amount requisite for its performance.” This report was concurred in by the Board of Assistants, and approved of by the Mayor, January 17th, 1833. In compliance with the request of the Common Council the Legislature of the State, on the 26th of February, 1833, passed an Act,[3] providing for the appointment by the Governor and Senate, of five persons, as Water Commissioners, whose duty it was by said Act declared to be “to examine and consider all matters relative to supplying the city of New-York with a sufficient quantity of pure and wholesome water for the use of its inhabitants, and the amount of money necessary to effect that object.”