The New York herald., 1873-07-19

pletely on 'sthe square with the other am
bassadors.
Oar Croton Wator supply-The Late
Drought and tho Welcome Rain.
The statements of Commissioner Van Mort
published in yesterdays HERALD) in refer
ence to the somewhat alarming effects of our
late unusually dry Summer upon our Croton
water supply cannot be too strongly impressed
upon the people Of Manhattan Island, as q
warning against all wasteful and needless ap-
preparations of our invaluable Croton water
till assured that the danger is over. Commits
sioner Van Mort says that the drought of this
Summer has been the severest upon the sources
of our Croton supply in the history Of the De-
partment; that, but for the large extra storage
reservoir recently provided by the Department
at Boyd's Corners, there would have been be-
fore now terrible dearth Of pure, fresh water
| in this city, and that it will be ''a touch and
CO. should we escape without water famine
in the Fall; and that, in the event of only
moderate rainfall in the interval, we can hardly
escape this possible famine. In other words,
we shall need copious rains from this time till
September to prevent the enforcement of linn
tied allowances of Croton water to our million
of people whose health and lives 80 materially
depend upon this precious article
The exhausting effects of the drought we
have suffered this season may be partly under
stood from the scanty rainfall over the region
of the Croton springs and lakes of the last
three months as compared with the same
period Of 1872. For May, June and July of
this year, down to Thursday last the rainfall
has been only some four inches, or less over
the Croton district, while for the same period
last year the rainfall was thirteen inches over
said district. Now, assuming the drainage of
our Croton sources to cover an area Of five
hundred square miles, the difference, as
officially reported, in the rainfall over this
district between this and last year, for May,
June and July, is the difference between lake
of five miles square and five and half feet
deep and the same lake reduced to less than
two feet in depth. In other words this years
scanty rainfall over our Croton district, for
the period indicated, as compared with last
year, has been equal to the extra exhaustion OF
a reservoir five miles square and nearly four
feet in depth. The supreme Importance to
this metropolis of the rainfall over our Croton
watershed may thus be comprehended.
especially when it is remembered that all the
fresh water, including wells, springs, streams
and lakes and all the waters of the inland
salt lakes Of our globe, including that i'm
mense salt lake, the Caspian Sea, are drawn
from the ocean by evaporation and discharged
upon the land in rain hail and snow.
Twelve months OF drought or less over this
Continent, without the supply of drop of
water from the skies in any form, would dry
up all our springs and wells and all our
shallow lakes, salt and fresh and all our
rivers above the tides from the sea, and would
reduce our deepest inland fresh water lakes to
basins Of brackish or salt water, from an ex-
hausting evaporation of their fresh water ele-
ments. But thanks to Providence, we have
no such calamity to fear. Compared with
many other countries We are secure from ex-
hausting droughts, though, from the sweeping
destruction of our forests, we are preparing
the way for them. Meantime we hope that
our late season of continued dry weather was
ended with the heavy thunder storm, with it's
bountiful downpouring rain, which came upon
this island and the surrounding cities islands
and mainland on Thursday night last. We have
been perplexed to account for the extraordi-
nary storms and inundations which through
June and July have deluged the Northwestern
States, while east of the Alleghanies the
parched fields have reminded us, on every
hand, of the dry season in California. We
hope now that the spell of this alarming
drought is broken, and that even before the
close of July the country east of the AL
leghanies will be abundantly watered and that
all fears of q failure in our Croton supply for
this Summer may be dismissed.
| Russia and Khiva-The Peace Treaty.
We print this morning a special despatch