38 LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 



life of American, and particularly Western, women, is 

 enough to account for a very large share of the nervous 

 debility which so generally prevails. If the rectangular 

 system must be adhered to in city arrangement, it would 

 be far better that the lines of streets should be northwest 

 and southeast, and the cross streets at right angles with 

 them, than as now disposed. 



The present city limits embrace an area eight miles in 

 length by five in breadth, and with the exception of the 

 few diagonal streets above alluded to, the city is simply a 

 vast collection of square blocks of buildings, divided by 

 straight streets, whose weary lengths become fearfully 

 monotonous to one who is under frequent necessity of 

 traversing them. 



Here and there at wide distances from each other 

 single squares have been reserved for public use, and in 

 one or two of these squares an elaborate effort at decora- 

 tion has been made by means of what is commonly 

 understood to be landscape gardening. Mountain ranges 

 are introduced which are overlooked from the chamber 

 windows of the surrounding houses ; lakes of correspond- 

 ing size are created apparently to afford an excuse for the 

 construction of rustic bridges, which are conspicuous at a 

 greater distance than either mountains or lakes. A light- 

 house three feet high, on a rocky promontory the size of a 

 dining room table, serves to warn the ducks and geese of 

 hidden dangers of navigation, and this baby-house orna- 

 mentation is tolerated in a great city which aspires to an 

 artistic reputation ; the crowds which throng these places 

 in pleasant weather give evidence alike of the popular 



