Ballou's Monthly Magazine

HE interest naturally felt by our citizens in their great system of water-works, has prompted us to offer in the present number of our Magazine a series of views drawn expressly for us by Mr. A. Waud, who visited the whole line of water-works for this purpose, and made his sketches on the spot. His drawings, eight in number, delineate the Waste Wier of the Cochituate at West Needham, the Gate House, Framingham, the Cochituate Dam in the same town, a Viaduct at Newton Lower Falls, the Bridge over the Charles River at Newton Lower Falls, the Brookline Gate House, Large Reservoir at Brookline, and the Beacon Hill Reservoir in this city, a structure Roman in its character of simplicity and solidity. Apart from their illustrative purpose, many of these pictures are pleasing as mere landscapes. Not many years since, the inadequacy and bad water of the city of Boston, the inability of the Jamaica Pond Company to supply the higher parts of the city the total dependence of a large portion of the pop ulation on rain water for the purpose of washing, the importance of an ample supply to ensure the health, comfort and cleanliness of the city, induced our authorities to consider the expediency of adopting the example of the sister cities of New York and Philadelphia, where water-works had been long in operation. After encountering the opposition which awaits all new projects, a popular vote finally ratified the undertaking by a decisive majority. The control of the water being in the hands of the city, the people enjoy it at cost. After an examination of the various sources of supply, a board of commissioners was appointed by the City Council in 1844, "to report the best mode and the expense of bringing the waters of Long Pond (now Lake Cochituate) into the city." The late Patrick T. Jackson, Nathan Hale and James F. Baldwin composed this board of commissioners--gentlemen eminently qualified to fulfil the important task assigned. The vacancy created by the death of Mr. Jackson was filled by the appointment of Mr. Thomas B. Curtis, and under their superintendence the work was completed in 1848. After Long Pond had been decided on, the commissioners secured the services of Mr. E. Sylvester Chesborough and Mr. W. S. Whitwell, as engineer and assistant engineer, with Mr. Jervis, of the New York Croton Works, as consulting engineer. Work was commenced on the 19th of August, 1846. Long Pond, or Lake Cochituate, the source of the aqueduct, is a large sheet of water lying in the towns of Natick, Framingham and Wayland, and the distance from the reservoir on Beacon Hill to the gate house at the lake, by the line of water-works, is twenty miles. The lake is of irregular shape, with indented shores, and its greatest extent is from north to south. Its area is 684 acres. The aqueduct commences at the eastern shore of the pond, and is carried out some distance into it. The works here consist of a bulkhead arranged with gates, and for the protection of the work, a gate house of granite, delineated on the next page. The aqueduct is built of brick, and is of an egg-shaped oval form, with the broader end downward, the greatest width being five feet, and the extreme height six feet four inches, composed of brick masonry eight inches thick, laid in hydraulic cement. This form of construction secures the greatest strength. A plastering of cement is laid on the inside from the bottom to the top of the water line, and also on the outside from the top to the chord line of the lower or inverted arch. By this means the escape of water from the

WASTE WIER OF CO-
CHITUATE AQUEDUCT,

WEST NEEDHAM.

inside, or its intrusion by percolation from the outside, is guarded against. The aqueduct descends three inches to the mile. At the natural outlet, where the lake flows into Concord River, a dam has been constructed of stone masonry to close the lake or regulate the discharge of water from it. The daily discharge of water through the aqueduct itself is estimated at about 7,000,000 wine gallons. At Newton there is a remarkable piece of work consisting of a tunnel cut through a ledge of rock 2410 feet in length. Through the greater part of this distance the roof of the tunnel consists of solid rock of. a hard and durable character; but the remaining portion having a tendency to decompose by exposure to the atmosphere, is lined with brick masonry. Wherever, on the line, pipes are substituted for the aqueduct, waste wiers have been erected for the discharge of such surplus water as is not received by the pipes. Gates to regulate the fall of water are enclosed in suitable buildings. Our first engraving represents one of these water wiers.

The Brookline reservoir has an area of nearly twenty-three acres, twenty-three feet deep in the easterly portion, and ten feet in the westerly. At the western end is a granite structure for the receiving gates, where the great brick conduit enters. The bank surrounding the reservoir consists of earth, principally sloping on each side, and is rendered impervious to water by a bank of puddled earth in the middle, going so far below the natural surface of the earth as was found necessary to connect it with a tight bottom. The exterior front of the embankment, where it rises beyond eight feet in height, is supported at the base by a bank wall, the material of which was taken partly from a quarry foundation within the basin, and partly from the Quincy granite quarries. At the eastern extremity of the reservoir

is the beautiful gate house of granite, represented in one of our engravings. The gates to receive and shut off the water are fitted in solid and durable masonry. The floor is on a level with the surface of Lake Cochituate. This building contains the requisite chambers and passages for regulating the delivery of water, either from the reservoir, or, in case of absolute necessity, from the aqueduct itself. These iron pipes, each three feet in diameter, lead from the chambers and connect with the main pipes conducting into the city. The water pipes, laid twenty feet below the ordinary level of the reservoir, enter the city through Brookline and Roxbury, over the Tremont Road. We give a view, among our sketches, of the main reservoir of the city on Beacon Hill, an imposing granite structure, built to endure through time. It is situated near the State House, on a lot of ground bounded by Derne, Temple, Mt. Vernon and Hancock Streets. The corner-stone of the reservoir was laid on Saturday, November 9, 1847, by the mayor, in presence of the City Council, and a vast body of citizens and strangers. This reservoir is of granite, the foundation being laid and every part of the work performed with the most scrupulous fidelity and care, and with a view to the greatest durability. It is built on arches of fourteen and three-fourths span, which, in consideration of the enormous pressure to which they are subjected, were set on foundations of immense strength. The reservoir covers area of 40,000 feet, and will hold three millions of gallons of water. The water is raised 112 feet above the tide level, and six and a half feet above the level of the floor of the State House. The water was let into the brick aqueduct at the lake October 12, 1848, at 11 o'clock, A. M. No accident marred the introduction of the Cochituate into the city. The celebration took place

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Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Volum 13