Public parks in the United States ou a small scale are as old as their cities. A sea side walk was originally the most common. The Battery in New York, and the Bay side in Charleston, S. C. are familiar examples. The city hall park in New York was originally its men's and boy's playground or common. It was but little improved until the city hall was built, when it was offensively fenced in. Boston common was specifi cally dedicated to public use by the founders of the city, and has more perfectly fulfilled its use than any other equal area in the country. Public squares in nearly all the cities, notably around Yale college in New Haven, have shown the noble expression that may be given to a very limited park by avenues of full grown. native trees. The period of land speculation from 1830 to 1837, when great numbers of western cities were platted, was peculiarly unfortunate in the failure to dedicate ground liberally either is park-places, public squares, or larger grounds. The beginning of the era of public parks for large cities, commensurate with their size, was when the city of New York felt the lack of park provision for her people and secured special legislation to create the °entrap:irk. Though inferior in many respects to older parks, especially if its recent growth of trees be compared with noble old park forests, and its limited ranges of with the great expanses of the finest English parks. yet it has this merit in a rema•k able degree: that, in proportion to the ground which it covers, the loss of space by the great reservoir consido•ed as well as its proportions and topography, it has developed in we beauties and interest for public use than any other. The property was secured in 1857, and the planssfor its laying out submitted by Frederick Law Ohnsted and Calvert Vanx were adopted and put in their charge to be executed. Work was begun at once. In 1858 4,000 men were engaged on it. The orderly manner in which the people thronged to enjoy its first opening beauties was a pleasing refutation of the fear that had been expressed that a quiet enjoyment of a park could not be maintained in an American city. The ground as purchased was a region of ledgy granite hills and swampy hollows, embracing a few small farms and old mansions. The transformation within five years was marvelous, and an enduring monument of the,genius of the designers, their CXel.'11. live ability, aril the energetic spirit of the park commissioners. The ground occupied is `,?i in. long n. and s. and a half-mile wide c. and w. The city reservoirs within it occupy 142 acres, forming a lake the elevation of which does not permit it to be given the air of a natural piece of water, but which nevertheless is a pleasing feature iu the warm months Besides this water there are six beautifully managed artificial lakes, con taining in all 43 acres. Exclusive of the reservoirs and building sites, the park contains 683 acres. About 110 acres are in lawn, little broken by rocks and only bordered by trees, nail the remainder mostly broken ground, in glades and young forests, or covered with copses and shrubbery, but nearly all in a condition to have a surface of lawn. here h•e m. of carriage roads of admirable construction, 51 m. devoted to saddle-horse use; and 28 m. of walks. The average breadth of the drives is 50 ft., of walks 13 ft.; and the entire area occupied by roads and walks is 100 acres. There are 8 bridges over water and 89 for roads and walks that intersect at different levels; forming altogether the most varied stody of single-arched bridge designs to be found within the limits of a single park. In originality of the forms employed in these bridges (no two of them being alike or even similar) in the grace of their lines, their adaptation to abutting grounds, the happy use of all sorts of materials, of cut stones, and rustic, of mixed stone and brick, of iron •and wood in their construction, in the perfectness of the mechanical work and the deli cate taste of their details they are monuments of the genius and taste of Mr. Calvert Vanx the architect, unsurpassed, if equaled, anywhere. The grand terrace, also by 31r. Vanx, is the first great work of park architecture executed in the United States. It is an admirable study. The visitors to the park frequently exceed 100,000 a day. A mag nificent system of parks and drives has been projected for the part of the island above Central park. Prospect park, Brooklyn, is an outgrowth of the enthusiasm developed by t he creation of the Central park. It contains 550 acres all of which is available for park use. Well-grown trees already on a part of it, and larger stretches of grassy ground, gave a nobler immediate effect in sylvan features than was possible in Central park. Its architectural features, though on a grand scale, are not so interesting as those of Cen tral park, except at the entrance which is finer. The park was designed by the same gentlemen who created Cenral park, with masterly skill in producing the finest results with the means at hand. The heights command a fine view of New York bay and the ,o•ean. Artificial lakes covering 50 acres of its surface are supplied with water by steam-power. It has 6 m. of carriage drives, 4 m. of saddle-horse roads, and 20 in. of iv a I ks. New York and Bsooklyn together have about 1600 acres appropriated to parks.
Philadelphia in addition to her generous original squara for park use—as Franklin, \Washington, Independence, Logan, and Ilitterhonse—has followed and outdone New in the purchase and improvement of 2,740 acres in one body—Fairmount park.
Its extent. varied surface, fine old trees, broad expanses of turf, the Schuylkill river at its side, and the stream of t'_-.e Wissahickon, flowing through a picturesque rocky elothed with the trees, shrubs and wild vines of virgin nature, through dark dells. broken by numerous waterfalls, altogether give it a different character from that of most otherqtarks of the United States. In artificial improvements it has had less expended upon it than the New York and Brooklyn parks. Baltimore has the honor of the noblest forest park of the United States, Druid Hill—an old forest of GOO acres acquired in 1860, previously the private park of an old estate.
Bu common contains 48 acres of pleasantly varied surface with trees as old as the city. Tile "old elm " was represented on 41 map published in 1722. English elms form ing a part •of its exterior avenues are the finest of their kind in the United States. The " public garden " is an extension n.w. of the common containing 21+ acres, separated from it by a street. It is kept in gardenesque style as an arboretum and botanical gar den. and contains a small lake, a conservatory, and many fine statues. Tire city has 23 Commonwealth avenue, leading from the public garden, is a grand park-way, 14 in. long. 240 ft. wide, in the center of which are double avenues of trees, and walks through grass-plots, shrubbery, and flowers.
The park system of Chicago, devised after 1864, was extensive and thorough as a plan, and though as yet but partially carried out, already fulfills an important mission of pleasure and comfort to its citizens. The plan embraces 1900 acres divided between G parks of 230 acres each and the broad parkways which connect them, and form a Mr eumvallation of the city from lake Michigan n. round to the lake south. The parks by the lake-shore will have some features suggested by peculiarities of Venice, and in the hot summer mouths will be delightful. The parks on the flat prairies west of the city will be slow to develop the beauty that can come only from a growth of trees to shade their lawns and walks. The park-ways are 20 m. in length, 200 to 250 ft. wide.
St. Louis has 2,100 acres devoted to park use, of which 160 acres are small place-parks, already in use in the city. Tower Grove park. containing 277 acres, has been handsomely improved, and is connected with the city by a park-way 120 ft. wide, which is apart of 12 tn. of such avenue embraced in its park system. Cincinnati has over 400 acres of park. Eden park containing 207 acres lies on the bluffs of the Ohio river e. of the city, and has a pleasing variety of vale and hill beautifully kept. Burnett-wood contains 168 acres mostly forest. Buffalo has one of the best park systems in the United States, consisting' of a park of 300 acres of a rural character, with fine trees, a lake of 46 acres approached from the city by a noble avenue with park-ways 200 ft. wide, and a promenade along its shore on one side, and a parade-ground and garden on the opposite side. The park and park-ways together cover 530 acres. San Francisco has made an interest ing essay in park-making by the conversion of some of the shifting sand dunes W. of the city into parks, by a careful system of watering and seeding; so that places where the of winds from the Pacific made and unmade new sand hills or materially changed all their surfaces every year, have become well-established lawns, planted with trees, and in a fair way to become beautiful parks. The work has not been so systematically fol lowed up as was intended, but whenever it is, then gardening skill, seconded .by the moist and equable climate of that coast, may be relied upon to cover the parks with interesting forms of semi-tropical vegetation. Winds are the sole enemy to these park formations; 1000 acres have been devoted to this experiment in the Golden Gate park, and broad park-ways along the sea entrance to the bay lead to it. Smaller cities throughout the United States and Canada have of late years followed the lead of the great ones. In many of them, comparatively small areas near the centers of population serve better than larger ones remote from it. It is a misfortune in many American cities that the late awakening to the need of more pleasure-grounds has forced the purchase of lands too remote to be most useful to the body of poor people who have most aced of their pure air and priceless recreation; and it is too much the fashion of modern park making to provide for those who can drive or ride to them, rather than for those who, like women and children, will use them only when near. In this respect European cities are generally much more favored. There nearly every town formerly had its wall and surrounding ditches and reserve of open ground outside kept clear for military defense, all belonging to the state. These walls and adjacent grounds, before as well as after the fortifications were razed, were the promenades of the people, and in modern times have been converted into parks and boulevards. Towns which have grown greatly have had several successive circles of inclosing fortifications; thus providing, as in Paris and Vienna, several successi• circles of public promenades, boulevards, and commons. Parks could not be devised more convenient to the people than these envitroning grounds nearly equidistant to all the population.