"We may only convey a few hints. The park was suggested by the late A. J. Downing, iu 1851, when Kingsland, mayor of the city, gave it his ofiicial recommendation. Within a hundred days the Legislature of the State of New York granted the city permission to lay out a park ; and in February, 1856, 733 acres of land, in the centre of the island, was in possession of the civic authorities for the purpose. Other purchases for the same end were made, and, finally, the area of the park was extended in the direction of Harlem Plains, so as to include 843 acres. It is more than two and a-half miles long, and half a mile wide, between the Fifth and Eighth Avenues, and Fifty-ninth and One Hundred and Tenth Streets. A great portion of this space was little better than rocky hills and marshy hollows, much of it covered with tangled shrubs and vines. The rocks are chiefly upheavals of gneiss, and the soil is composed mostly of alluvial deposits tilled with boulders. Already a wonderful change has been wrought. Many aci'es have been beautified, and the visitor noAV has a clear idea of the general character of the park, when completed.

The primary purpose of the park is to provide the best practicable means of healthful recreation for the inhabitants of the city, of all classes. Its chief feature will be a Mall, or broad walk of gravel and grass, 208 feet wide, and a fourth of a mile long, planted with four rows of the magnificent American elm trees, with scats and other rc(|uisites for resting and lounging. This, as has been suggested, will be New York's great out-ofdoors Hall of Ee-union. There will be a carriage-way more than nine miles in length, a bridle-path or equestrian road more than five miles long, and walks for pedestrians full twenty-one miles in length.