The mention of the High bridge at Harlem, and its connection with the
aqueduct which brings the Croton water to the city of New York, suggests
some notice of the aqueduct by which water is brought to the city of
Boston, Massachusetts. So early as 1795, an association was formed in
Boston for supplying the inhabitants with pure water; and for years it
was brought from Jamaica pond, in Roxbury, some four miles distant, in
logs which were bored for the purpose. These logs were capable of
supplying some fifty thousand gallons daily, which could be raised to
the hight of forty-nine feet above tide-water. This supply, however, was
soon found inadequate to the wants of the city, though in 1845, some
fifteen miles of pipes had been laid, and some three thousand houses
were regularly supplied with water. A plan was therefore formed in 1845,
to supply the city with water from Lake Cochituate, or Long pond, as it
was formerly called, about twenty miles west of Boston. This lake covers
a surface of some six hundred and fifty acres, is seventy feet deep, and
drains the springs, it is supposed, of some eleven thousand acres. Its
elevation is one hundred and twenty-four feet above spring-tide, so that
the descent is such as to make the conveyance of water to the city both
easy and sure. The water is carried in a brick conduit or tunnel, high
enough for a man to walk upright in, as far as the receiving reservoir
in Brookline, and from there is taken in thirty and thirty-six inch
pipes to the distributing reservoir on Beacon hill, in Boston. It is
this reservoir, a view of which is given in the cut beyond, from which
the water is distributed in pipes throughout the city. The average daily
supply of water needed for the present population of Boston, is about
five million gallons. The water-works are capable of supplying twenty
million gallons daily; and the Cochituate lake is capable, (by laying
down another main pipe,) of supplying forty million gallons daily. The
supply of the lake is fully equal to the wants of half a million of
people.
[Illustration: THE BOSTON RESERVOIR.]