The Engineers of the Fire Department, holding the opinion that hydrants of much greater capacity than those now in use, and of a kind that will allow of the concentration of a number of engines at one point, are essential for proper protection against fire, especially in districts covered with high and valuable buildings, have recommended that either the Lowry or Hill hydrant be adopted. In conformity to this recommendation, your Board has decided to substitute the Lowry for the old hydrants in the "burnt district." To furnish these with a full supply of water requires that the existing street mains should be replaced by new pipes of greater capacity.

Plans and estimates for this work have been submitted and accepted, and an appropriation has been made by the City Council to carry it out.

It is desirable that these hydrants be used at all points, where tall and expensive buildings are found, or where there are buildings filled with materials of a very combustible character, such as the large wood-working shops, piano and organ manufactories, etc.; and to make their full capacity available, it will, in many instances, be necessary to make some modifications in the distributing system of pipes that will effect a more rapid delivery of water than is now possible.

Sectional plans of Roxbury, four in number, on a scale of two hundred feet to an inch, showing the water pipes as laid, with the location of gates and hydrants, have been made for the Superintendent of the Eastern Division, and similar plans of Boston proper and of Roxbury and Dorchester, on a scale of one hundred feet to an inch, are in preparation. The plans of Boston proper, thirteen in number, are practically completed, and those of Roxbury, twenty-two in number, are nearly so.

PUMPING WORKS.

The following table shows the total and monthly work done by the engines during the past year, and the amount of coal consumed in doing it:

The average daily amount pumped for the year has been 733,499 gallons; the daily average for 1871 was 557,634 gallons; the increase is about 31 per cent.

Owing to this increase, and to the necessity of furnishing an abundant supply of water for fires within the high-service area, the existing pumping machinery is unable to perform the duty required of it. I was therefore directed by your Board, early in the season, to report upon the best means for securing an adequate supply for all purposes; and in obedience to those orders the following report was presented.

CITY OF BOSTON.

"OFFICE OF THE CITY ENGINEER, CITY HALL.

"BOSTON, March 4, 1873. "CHAS. H. ALLEN, Esq., President Cochituate Water Board:

"SIR,The following report relating to the best method of increasing the effective capacity of the high-service system of water supply is made by request of Mr. Haven, Chairman of the Committee on Eastern Division.

The districts included within the limits marked out on the map for the high-service distributing system constitute more than one-third of the present area of the city.

They are: Beacon Hill in Boston Proper, Telegraph Hill in South Boston, Parker's Hill, Fort Hill, Tommy's Rock and the Seaver Hill Territory in Roxbury, and the range of high lands which forms the greater portion of Dorchester; making in all an area of about 3,500 acres.

"A part of this area is not now supplied with water, in fact has scarcely any population, and a large portion of that which is supplied is not thickly populated; but both parts contain some of the most desirable land for residences within the city limits, and evidently are destined to be rapidly occupied.

"Future annexations will greatly increase the high-service area, both absolutely and relatively, and if all the territory extending to Mother Brook, between the Charles and Neponset rivers, shall form the future city, or one metropolitan district, then the area to be supplied from your high-service system will

be very much larger than that to be furnished with water by the low-service.

"It is therefore evident that the high-service works will in a few years form one of the most important divisions of the entire system of water supply, and it is particularly desirable that their general character and outline shall be determined upon at as early a day as the necessary data for this purpose can be obtained, that whatever extensions are made in the existing system may, if possible, be so made that they will form parts of, or be available for, the system of the future.

Although the data are not now at command from which even a general outline of this system can be determined, nevertheless, there are certain features which it must or should have, that can be pointed out, and which have a bearing on the question that is the more immediate subject of this report.

"The water must be raised by machinery to an elevation that will give the requisite head upon the distributing pipes, and it is of great importance that at the point where this machinery is located there shall be a large store of water, that no interruption may occur to the supply in case the aqueduct or pipe which furnishes the water to the pumps is temporarily thrown out of use for examination, or repairs, or by accident to it.

"This condition requires the eventual abandonment of the location of the engines which now supply the high-service, for a new one either at the Chestnut Hill or the Brookline Reservoir, or at some new reservoir that may be built, specially for the purpose, at a more favorable point.

"There are other reasons than that of a want of a store of water, why the present location on Elmwood street, of the high-service machinery, is not the proper one for the machinery of a system of works that is to supply an extensive territory and a large population. There is a want of room at this point; the engine buildings would be exposed to the attacks of fires originating on neighboring premises; the loca