. Cassier's magazine . ized the city itself. In the case of New York, the diffi-culty of using sufficient foresight inthe past will be better understood byconsidering a few salient hundred years ago this sec-ond greatest city of the world did notexist. When settlements were madethe city began its growth from thesouthern extremity of ManhattanIsland. The local water supply wasprobably entirely adequate for a con-siderable period, as this island is byno means a low, flat sand pile. Thehigh ground along the Hudson in thenorth must have been the location ofthe sources of a number of su
. Cassier's magazine . ized the city itself. In the case of New York, the diffi-culty of using sufficient foresight inthe past will be better understood byconsidering a few salient hundred years ago this sec-ond greatest city of the world did notexist. When settlements were madethe city began its growth from thesouthern extremity of ManhattanIsland. The local water supply wasprobably entirely adequate for a con-siderable period, as this island is byno means a low, flat sand pile. Thehigh ground along the Hudson in thenorth must have been the location ofthe sources of a number of suitablestreams. These, with wells andsprings, must have met the demandsfor many years. The development of the first be-ginnings into a great city has oc-curred during the last century. Bos-ton and Philadelphia were bothgreater before the Revolution. In1790 the population was only 33, 1810 it was but 96,000. But thisincrease of 191 per cent, in two de-cades is to be taken, perhaps, as in- THE CATSKILL AQUEDUCT 2 53. Courtesy of Dr. John M. Clarke, Director New York State Museum. CATSKILL WATERSHEDS AND ROUTE OF AQUEDUCT dicative of what was to come. How-ever, the next ten years added lessthan 30 per cent.—a considerable in-crease, but less than one-third of whatmight have been expected. Never- theless the city went on, addingwonderfully to its population, andbecame the greatest city of the NewWorld. In i860, just before theCivil War, 800,000 people inhabited 254 CASSIERS MAGAZINE Manhattan Island. In 1890 the cityhad a population of 1,500,000. Itwould have been difficult to haveforeseen all this many years in ad-vance. Even if some far-sightedperson had grasped the full sig-nificance of all the factors at work,the rate of growth was so extra-ordinary that it is to be doubtedwhether at any time during the yearsbetween 1810 and 1890 the city couldhave been reasonably expected to un-dertake the task of fully meeting thedemands of the subsequent twentyor thirty years. In 1874
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