Viennese and strangers are most in the habit of resorting; thence bear toward the north and toward the south, the Kärntnerstrasse and the Porte Rouge Street, so as to form a grand artery traversing the whole of the ancient city. One of the finest boulevards in the world has been built on the site of the fortifications that surrounded the place in the east, south, and west; and beyond this "Ring," as well as on the north side of the branch of the Danube, vast suburbs, regularly laid out, extend in every direction, enlarging tenfold the surface of the city.
Sometimes circumstances prevent the development being equal in every direction. The city of Antwerp, resting on the Scheldt, presents, with the suburbs that have recently been annexed to it, a semi-circular form. Calais has only one suburb, much more populous, it is true, than the city itself; and the fortifications which separate the town and its suburb are to be razed and replaced by boulevards. Dismantling is not the only agency by which the aspect of cities may be suddenly modified. A great fire, for example, destroyed the central part of the city of Rennes in 1720, after which a new town, with high houses, wide, straightened, and rectangular streets, and handsome squares, was built in place of the burned one. A few old quarters, which the fire had spared, formed an ugly enough inclosure for this new town, which still partly exists. At the same time the suburbs have stretched out along all the principal roads, and a few new quarters have been built in the healthiest part of the suburban zone. At other times the hand of man destroys entire quarters, to reconstruct them in a more convenient and more hygienic manner. In such cases the worst quarters are the first to suffer transformation, and become in their turn the most elegant ones. The example set in Paris, under the administration of M. Haussmann, has been extensively followed in other cities in France and abroad. The construction of new basins in sea-ports also frequently leads to radical modifications of the aspect of the towns and in the grouping of their streets. We are evidently very far from exhausting the questions that grow out of the subject; but we hope we have succeeded in showing how complex and interesting they are, and how imperfect is the plan of those cities that are laid out in a network of rectangular streets.—Translated from the Revue Scientifique.
| SKETCH OF PROFESSOR S. S. HALDEMAN. |
THE career of Professor Haldeman illustrates how a student, who has his heart in his work, may excel as a specialist in more than one branch of science; and shows how the enthusiastic investigator, seeking light from all sides on the point he has under investigation,
