SECRETARY'S REPORT. 145 



full of instruction. This enterprise owed its origin to the public 

 spirit and untiring energy of Baron Merck. The transforma- 

 tion of a sandy desert, as it is described to have been previous 

 to the location of this garden, is quite wonderful when the time 

 is considered. It now wears the aspect of a beautiful park, 

 with its lakes and hills, its rocky grottos and alpine peaks, all 

 filled with a large and attractive variety of birds and animals 

 collected from all parts of the world. Though still small, of 

 course, and ungrown, the general arrangement of the trees and 

 shrubbery is excellent. This is destined to become one of the 

 finest zoological gardens on the continent, a place of resort not 

 merely for amusement, but for instruction in natural science, 

 and important as cultivating a correct taste in the public. The 

 grounds comprise many acres and the specimens many thou- 

 sands. 



I had previously visited the Zoological Garden at Frankfort- 

 on-the-Main, and those at Ghent, Dublin and other cities. That 

 at Frankfort was started as a joint stock company, and has not 

 only been self-supporting, but decidedly prosperous, notwith- 

 standing the fact that the cost must have been very great, 

 owing to the extent and magnificence with which the whole is 

 laid out. The director took great pains to show us all parts of 

 the immense establishment, comprising many acres, consisting 

 of ponds and lakes, islands, groves and hills, and thousands of 

 birds, animals and reptiles. The week previous to our visit 

 there were more than thirty thousand visitors to this garden, 

 and the receipts were more than six thousand dollars. 



"Why should not Boston and other American cities exhibit 

 the same public spirit as the cities of Europe ? We have the 

 means, but we are far behind many, in fact, most of the Euro- 

 pean cities, in this respect, and in open parks and squares and 

 pleasure-grounds. We are not apt to look forward, to antici- 

 pate the wants of the people of a great city. We have nothing 

 that can in any way compare in beauty, and taste and finish, to 

 say nothing of extent, with the magnificent Alster Basin at 

 Hamburg, and the public shaded promenades around it. We 

 have no promenade to be at all compared with the splendid 

 ornamental grounds along the Danube in Vienna, and we have 

 forever shut out the possibility of it, by allowing long ranges of 

 brick and mortar houses on the outside of the Mill-dam, when 



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