LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 37 



streets, which is generally from sixty-six to eighty feet, 

 a most important provision certainly, and one which is so 

 often neglected, that it reflects credit upon the judgment 

 of those who exercised such forethought. 



Within the present city limits are comprised about 

 eight hundred miles of streets, and with the exception of 

 ten or twelve whose course is diagonal to that of the 

 general system, and only one of which conies within a 

 mile of the central business portion of the city, all the 

 streets run due north and south and east and west. The 

 town having originally started on these lines, the great 

 city has grown up by simple projections of the same, the 

 diagonals being old country roads whose convenience was 

 too well established to admit of their removal. Before 

 going farther, it is worthy of remark that the arranging of 

 the streets according to the cardinal points involves a 

 sanitary objection of no mean import. No fact is better 

 established than the necessity of sunlight to the highest 

 degree of animal health, and no constitution can long 

 endure, without ill effect, the habitual daily privation of 

 its health giving power. City houses at best can rarely 

 be so well provided for in this respect as those which 

 stand alone, as is generally the case in the country, and 

 it is all the more important that every facility should be 

 afforded to secure as much as possible of its genial influ- 

 ence. But every house on the south side of a street 

 running east and west must have its front rooms, which 

 are generally its living rooms, entirely secluded from the 

 sun during the Winter, and for most of the day during 

 the Summer. This fact, coupled with that of the indoor 



