LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. 81 



to all future generations of inhabitants a legacy of tax- 

 ation, to preserve the hideousness of the original outrage 

 on common sense and natural beauty, when a proper 

 adaptation of the streets and subdivisions to the natural 

 shape of the ground, would have made of the now 

 unsightly bluffs the most striking and attractive feature 

 in the general aspect of the town. 



Only a few years since the beautiful island which 

 divides the Falls of St. Anthony could have been secured 

 by the thriving city of Minneapolis, which overlooks it, 

 for a trifling sum, and would have made a park of a per- 

 fectly unique and rarely attractive character, but the 

 opportunity was lost and is now never alluded to but 

 with regret. 



Day after day is bringing similar opportunities and 

 silently offering them for our acceptance. No flaming 

 advertisements set forth their merits ; no solicitations are 

 made to us to secure them. We have but to reach out 

 our hands, and they are given to us "without money and 

 without price." But the solemn procession never stops 

 or falters in its silent course, and if we miss the auspicious 

 hour, the chance is gone forever. We may cast our long- 

 ing eyes upon its retreating form, and curse our own 

 blindness and stupidity, but it is as utterly beyond recall 

 as the day in whose arms it was borne. 



It may be said that it cannot be foretold at the outset 

 what is to be the size of a town, or what will constitute 

 its principal branches of business or manufacture, without 

 which knowledge it is impossible to adapt its arrangement 

 to its possible necessities. I have elsewhere conceded 



6 



