New York City's water system is, by every measure, an engineering marvel. Delivering 1.2 billion gallons of water each day to more than nine million people, it is a complex network of reservoirs stretched out over a vast upstate region and connected by a web of subterranean aqueducts to rival the aqueducts of the ancient Romans. The system, so pivitol to the development of the nation's largest city and its northern suburbs, was realized over the past century and a half, and indeed is still being built beneath New York City's subways and skyscrapers. This is the first comprehensive history of that system from colonial times to the present.

Liquid Assets: A History of New York City's Water System

Science & Math

Diane Galusha

Technology

Purple Mountain Press, Ltd.

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

The Indian Pass: Source of the Hudson

Travel

Street, Alfred Billings

Asia

Albany native and Dutch descendant Waldron Polgreen made this exquisite collection of photographs in the 1930s and early 1940s. The images are of very good quality, having been photographed on 5 x 7 inch sheet film and carefully preserved by his family. Rich, detailed descriptions and drawings enhance the collection. Before perishing in World War II, young Polgreen roamed the countryside around Albany, carefully photographing these aging Dutch dwellings from many angles. There is no other such book on the surviving Dutch-American dwellings as found in the 1930s. Even those with no particular interest in Dutch architecture will enjoy the raw, embellished scenes of a simpler time. Many of the Dutch houses seen in this book did not survive past the 1970s, and far fewer can be seen today. The book includes a 1944 portrait of Polgreen in US Army uniform, and a short biography.

Dutch Architecture Near Albany: The Polgren Photographs

Arts & Photography

Dunn, Shirley W.

Bennett, Allison P.

Architecture

New York State lost tens of thousands of acres of woodland to devastating forest fires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In response, the state placed fire observers on prominent peaks. The first stations were crudely-built log platforms, but these were eventually replaced by high steel towers, and they became destinations for generations of hikers who admired the views from on high and the stories told by the colorful observers. Aerial surveillance, improved communications, and public education in fire prevention eventually made the towers obsolete, and many were removed. Today, some of the remaining towers have been or are being restored for the benefit of hikers. Marty Podskoch brings the history and the stories of the towers in the words of the observers, the rangers who supervised them and the pilots who replaced them in the southern half of New York State's Adirondack Mountains. (This is the first of two volumes.)

Adirondack Fire Towers: Their History and Lore, The Southern Districts

Podskoch, Martin

Stone walls are relics left by previous generations to record their history on the landscape of New York's Catskill Mountains. The author has followed many of these venerable walls in a surveying career spanning fifty years. He is a keen observer of the landscape, of nature, and of the folkways of the memorable characters he has encountered in the woods. His books of mystery fiction set in the Catskills are also available from Amazon.

Old Stone Walls: Catskill Land and Lore

History

Valkenburgh, Norman J. Van

Americas

Capt. Theodore Bartley, owner of three Lake Champlain canal boats, kept a fascinating journal of his life from 1861 to 1889 on the canals and waterways of the Northeast. His travels included voyages north to Ottawa, west to Buffalo, and south to Philadelphia. His journal entries range from dramatic tales of near sinkings during gales on Lake Champlain to descriptions of the lives of ordinary people during the late 19th century. Bartley witnessed history in the making, and his journals provide an intimate portrait of the life of a canal boat family crisscrossing America during a period of extraordinary change.

Life on a Canal Boat: The Journals of Theodore D. Bartley, 1861-1889

Engineering & Transportation

Theodore D. Bartley

Transportation

Robert Kirk served with the 42nd and 77th Highland Regiments in North America during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion. From Niagara Falls to Newfoundland, from the Carolina's to the Mississippi, he covered some five thousand miles by foot, canoe, whaleboat, and transport ship. By the time he returned home after 10 years of "service truly critical," our roguish hero had not only been captured by Shwanee Indians but hat become an accomplished frontier man. Personal narratives by private soldiers are the rarest of all sources for this war; it's a unique first-hand account. Fully annotated by Ian McCulloch and Timothy Todish and illustrated with paintings by Robert Griffing. The introduction is by noted British historian Stephen Brumwell.

Through So Many Dangers: The Memoirs and Adventures of Robert Kirk, Late of the Royal Highland Regiment

Kirkwood, Robert

Dr. Robert Titus has revised and enlarged his guide to the geology of New York State's Catskill Mountains for this thrid edition. Written for the layperson, the book explores the 400 million years of geological history hidden in the region's rocks and landscapes. Here are stories of continental collisions, lost mountain ranges, and primitive fossil creatures in an ancient sea. Most of all it is the story of the land of Gilboa, literally a land that time has forgotten.

The Catskills: A Geological Guide

TITUS, ROBERT

Earth Sciences

Adirondack Fire Towers: Their History and Lore--The Northern Divisions

Martin Podskoch

In the 1700s, poor yankees and freed slaves carved out homesteads on a rugged mountain on the New York-Connecticut border. They shared the mountain with the embattled Schaghticoke Indian tribe. This is the story of both groups failed attempts to hold onto their land in the shadow of America's first industrial boom--the age of iron. The people abandoned the mountain and forest grew back. All that remains is a ghost town.

Up on Preston Mountain: The Story of an American Ghost Town

John Polhemus

Richard Polhemus

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