[Footnote A:  The length of roads, walks, etc., completed, will be found in the last Annual Report, pp. 47-52.

The length of the famous drive in Hyde Park (the King Road) is 2 1/2 miles.  There is another road, straight between two gates, 1 1/4 miles in length.  “Rotten Bow” (the Ride) is a trifle over a mile in length.

The length of Drive in Central Park will be 9 1/3 miles; the length of Bridle Roads, 5 1/3 miles; the length of Walks, 20 miles.

Ten miles of walk, gravelled and substantially underlaid, are now finished.

Eighteen archways are planned, beside those of the Transverse Roads, equal 1 to 46 acres.  When the planting is well-grown, no two of the archways will be visible from the same point.]

To their supply there were hard limitations.  On each side, within half a mile of each other, there were to be lines of stone and brick houses, cutting off any great lateral distance.  Suppose one to have entered the Park at the south end, and to have moved far enough within it to dispossess his mind of the sentiments of the streets:  he will have threaded his way between hillocks and rocks, one after another, differing in magnitude, but never opening a landscape having breadth or distance.  He ascends a hill and looks northward:  the most distant object is the hard, straight, horizontal line of the stone wall of the Reservoir, flanked on one side by the peak of Vista Rock.  It is a little over a mile distant,—­but, standing clear out against the horizon, appears much less than that.  Hide it with foliage, as well as the houses right and left, and the limitation of distance is a mile in front and a quarter of a mile upon each side.  Low hills or ridges of rock in a great degree cut off the intermediate ground from view:  cross these, and the same unassociated succession of objects might be visited, but no one of them would have engaged the visitor’s attention and attracted him onward from a distance.  The plan has evidently been to make a selection of the natural features to form the leading ideas of the new scenery, to magnify the most important quality of each of these, and to remove or tone down all the irregularities of the ground between them, and by all means to make the limit of vision undefined and obscure.  Thus, in the central portion of the Lower Park the low grounds have been generally filled, and the high grounds reduced; but the two largest areas of low ground have been excavated, the excavation being carried laterally into the hills as far as was possible, without extravagant removal of rock, and the earth obtained transferred to higher ground connecting hillocks with hills.  Excavations have also been made about the base of all the more remarkable ledges and peaks of rock, while additional material has been conveyed to their sides and summits to increase their size and dignity.