pidity of the changes wrought, and the novelty of the scenes presented, soon gave the enterprise great celebrity; and the rapid rise in the taxable value of the land near it more than met the interest oh its cost. An efficient management of its public use was maintained, and though frequented by great crowds of people it was found, contrary to general expectation, that a degree of good order and of social amenity prevailed, nowhere surpassed and rarely equalled in the public places of Europe. Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Albany, Providence, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Montreal, and San Francisco have since each acquired land for one or more parks of considerable extent, the average being over 500 acres. As in the case of New York, the selection of ground has often been made more with reference to other considerations than to that of fitness for the intended use. Some are as yet only held for future use, while in others provisions essentially temporary, and which will be in the way of substantial improvement, are made; none are so far complete and well fitted as fairly to illustrate the ends which a park should be designed to serve. — The Central park of New York is 2½ miles long and half a mile wide, but this space is practically divided by the reservoirs of the city water works, which are elevated above its general level and occupy 142 acres. Deducting besides this certain other spaces occupied for special public purposes, the area of the park proper is 683 acres. Of this, 55 acres is meadow-like ground, 54 in smaller glades of turf, 400 of rocky and wooded surface, 43 in six pieces of water, the largest being of 20 acres, 15 in riding ways, 52 in carriage ways, and 39 in walks. There are 5½ m. of rides, 9½ m. of drives, and 28 m. of walks. Omitting a few by-roads, the average breadth of the drives is 50 ft., and of the walks 13 ft. There are 8 bridges (over water) and 38 tunnels and subway arches, 15 of which are concealed from view by plantations carried over them, and all of which are expedients for reconciling within narrow limits the large amount of foot, horse, and wheel room required with sylvan and pastoral landscapes. On the east side, near the middle of the parallelogram containing the park and reservoirs, ground is reserved for a great museum of art; and beyond its boundary on the west side another plot is held for a museum of natural history. The first block of each is now building. There are carriage and foot entrances at the two southern corners, and between them on the south end, at the termini of street railroads, there are two foot entrances; and 14 other entrances are in use or provided for. From the S. E. or Fifth avenue approach, which is most used, the visitor is led by a nearly direct course to a slightly elevated point in the interior of the park, northwardly from which, at great cost in reducing the original rocky knolls, broad green surfaces have been prepared (D, E on the map), and views of a tranquil landscape character obtained of considerable extent. At the most distant visible point a small tower of gray stone (B) has been built to draw the eye, and the perspective effect is aided by the character and disposition of the foliage, and especially by an avenue of elms (A) leading toward it. At the end of this avenue, termed the mall, the ground falls rapidly to the arm of a lake, and here a structure called the terrace (C) has been introduced, which, though mainly below the general plane of the landscape and unobtrusive, supplies a considerable shelter and place of reunion. It is designed to be richly decorated with sculptured works. On one side of it is the concert ground of the park, on the other a fountain surmounted by a bronze typifying the angel of Bethesda. The concert ground is overlooked by a shaded gallery called the Pergola, back of which is a small house of refreshment in cottage style. On the opposite side of the water is a rocky and wooded slope, threaded by numerous paths, called the ramble (F). These with the green (D), play ground reserved for the scholars of the public schools, two irregular bodies of water, and several rocky knolls (on one of which is the Kinderberg, a place for little children), form the chief features of the south park. Those of the north are a central meadow (K) divided by a rocky spur, the high wooded ground beyond it (L), with a steep rocky face on the north, and an intermediate glen with a chain of waters. The number of visits to the park sometimes exceeds 100,000 in a day, and is about 10,000,000 a year. —Prospect park of Brooklyn, N. Y., contains, with the adjoining parade ground, 550 acres. There is included in it a considerable amount of old wood, and for this reason, and because of the better soil, climate, and early horticultural management, it has a finer rural and more mature character than the New York park, though its construction was begun eight years later. It has about 6 m. of drives, 4 m. of ride, and 20 m. of walks. Its artificial water covers a space of 50 acres, and is supplied from a well by a steam pump. It commands a fine view over the ocean. (See Brooklyn.) There are 33 smaller public grounds in New York and Brooklyn, all but three of which are improved and in use, the total pleasure ground space of the two cities being 1,600 acres. — Fairmount park of Philadelphia is a body of land 2,740 acres in extent, having a great variety of surface, all of it of considerable natural beauty. The heights command fine distant prospects; it bears many noble trees, and at the part most remote from the city there is a glen through which dashes a charmingly picturesque stream. It is divided by the Schuylkill river and crossed by a common highway and in two directions by railroads, the cuttings and embankments of which unfortunately completely break the naturally most quiet scenes. These with other structures, some of which have been recently erected and are designed to be permanent, greatly disturb its natural beauty. The object
