The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-23
Beginning of Worlds Greatest
 Engineering Feat
CITYS NEW WATER SYSTEM
To Cost More Than the Panama Canal. Have Spooks Any Standing In court?-Express Companies
 Hit by the Rate Law.
BY sEwELL HAeeARD.

greatest piece of engineering ever al tempted was begun on Thursday of this week wLen Mayor Mcclellan with small silver trowel turned over bit of earth among the hills two miles back from Cold Springs on the Hudson river. It was the beginning of New York's new water supply system, the cost of which is estimated at s161 100000 or $20,- OO0 0O0 more than the Panama canal is to cost.
 From a reservoir as large as Manhat- tan Island, and with an average depth of 200 feet the water will be brought to
 the fsucets in New York through an
 aqueducI as big as a subway tunnel The L1rlesr problem confronting the en- gineers is to put the aqueduct under the Hudson. It will be necessary to dive down HOO feet to make a crossing 65J feAl below the bed of the river. No such thing has ever been done but not wthstanding this the engineers are con- fident of success.
 | The reservoir will take up the whole O. what is known as the Esopus valley which Is so shut in that only two dams w-.l be necessary to make of 1t a great lake, Geologists say that it was such n
 lake until an earth convulsion opened it towarA the Hudson. Thus man will re- store the work of creation. This work not only includes surveying and boring, but involves also the condemnation of 15,00O acres of land, the relocation of forty miles of highway and the rebuild ing of fourteen miles of railroad and the demolition of nearly a thousand build | ings. In the area of the reservoir Is a population of 5000 which will have to move. The average amount of water | held in the enormous lake will be 170,0O0,- 900 gallons.
 The system, 1t is expected will be completed in from eight to ten years. | The starting of the work will be monu- | ment to the administration of Mayor Mcclellan It was he who. realizing the 1 emergency, got the legislature to pass | an enabling act and appointed a com l mission to make the preliminary inves- tigation. The problem the commission had | to solve was how a city of 4,000, ,000, l which was nearing it's limit in water supply could get the prime requisite | They found that the population of the | Greater New York approximates 4,S0O l 000 They found also that the total con- l sumption of water is 5OoOOo,000 gallons per dem, of which the Croton system 1 when completely developed In 1910 can l be relied upon to furnish only 325,000, GOO. At the end of 1915, the population of l Greater New York is estimated at 5,26O,- 1 GOO and it's water consumption at TO- 1 100000 gallons or 250,000, 900 above the l present available supply. In 1880 the pop ulation will have increased to almost | 7,..J,0OO and consumption to over 1,000 l OvJ,000 gallons daily
 Their answer is a projected system | that will double the citys present sup | ply, a system that when completed will be able to furnish 'two-thirds of gal l lon of water per day to every human | being on earth.
 1ne cost of s161 100000 is more than | thirty times the cost of the Corinth | canal, an achievement which the Roman empire under Nero undertook, but failed to accomplish and which was not finish ed until about thirteen years ago. The great Suez canal, which had baked hu- man ambition for ~ore than twenty cen turies cost only five-eghths of what the -Catsklll water scheme is figured at Great as will be the cost of these works, 1t will not be a heavy burden per capita. By the time the city is en. toying the full benefit of the new SUD- plies it's population will probably have reached 100000 Twenty-Five yearly pay ments of 90 cents per person would de- fray the cost of building these great works to provide water for private, man ufactur:ng and public uses at the rate of 15O gallons for each person, each day. but experience has shown that the water works of large cities, if reasonable rates are charged for water, have sufficient earning capacity to pay for their oper- ation and the investment for construc- tion sc that the city practically lends only it's credit for the construction of the @n T0ter Interesting feature of the woes.was the problem of filtration. This the en- g.loers and other experts have solved by the big filtration plant which Is to be installed at scarsdale, a plant that is to cost upwards of GOO and whose filter beds are to extend for over mile. All the water will be made to flow through a layer of sand more than two feet thick. Beneath the sand are pebbles. and under these, stones of size increasing with depth. Down among the larger stones are placed longitudin- ally perforated drain pipes, such as are used In draining wet land. In passing through the sand the microbes and im- puritics adhere to the sand and are left behind by the water. which flows on in purified condition, being conducted by the drain pipes to the continuation of the aqueduct.
 At intervals varying with the condi- tions of the water the filter-beds will be cleansed by being washed free of the accumulated filth and bacteria. An acre of fltration-beds will suffice to clean about five million gallons of water per day, and 150 acres are ample for cleans ing the entire supply from the Catskills.
 There is an interesting legal point in the suit brought in the supreme court here to have the sanity of E. w. Van derbilt determined. The action is brought by the defendants daughter MT. Van derbiit Is now the husband of Mrs. May Pepper a spirit medium, she being his sec ond wife. Miss Vanderbilt alleges that her father was influenced to marry Mrs. Pepper by means of letters supposed to have been dictated by the spirit of his dead wife The plea of the defence is that the letters were in the handwrit- ing of Mrs Pepper, but the advice was that of the deceased wife communicated to the medium by Little Bright Eyes" an Indian maiden who was her celestial rrespondent. The question is shall spooks have any standing in court?
 .-rhe frequent occurrence of cases of spirit control reveals a need of legisla- tIon fixing the legal status of spooks." which are bodies without souls, possess legal rights. shall souls be bereft of those rights they once had just be- World continues:
 "Denizens of the spirit world are said to retain most of >leir earthly accom- plishments and often acquire others. The paint pictures, as in the Diss De-