146 FIRST COUNTY PARK SYSTEM 
the public to determine. From present indications, it will 
not be long before the question of detriment to the public 
at large, from the methods of modern high finance, and the 
concentration of large sums of other people’s money in the 
hands of a few men to control, will be readily understood 
and the false principle upon which the operations are based 
generally appreciated and measured at their true worth. 
At the close of 1896, within fifteen months after the re- 
ceipt of $2,450,000, the commission found that its financial 
limit had been practically reached. The results of the 
policy of individual selection of the parks, rather than that 
of a careful prior study of the requirements for the park 
system as a whole had, in this comparatively brief time, 
fully materialized. Although the balance sheet of Decem- 
ber 31, 1896, showed a cash balance on hand or $1,209,559, 
the outstanding obligations for land and other liabilities 
and contracts were then sufficient to absorb all but a rela- 
tively small portion of this unexpended sum. At the board 
meeting of December 2 the landscape architects and engi- 
neers submitted, under a resolution of September 17, 1896, 
a “general plan of the system of county parks and park- 
ways,” including a formal estimate of the cost of the parks 
already determined upon. These estimates were made after 
consultation with the land agents and other employes of the 
department, who were then in charge of the various phases 
of the work. This estimate was as follows: 
Estimated cost for land at various parks: 
Branch Brook ............--.000- $1,076,000 
Lake Weequahic ..........0.e000- 180,000 
Eastern (Hast Side).............. 125,000 
Basle Rock y ca:divsade cians dae wc 227,000 
Millburn (South Mountain)........ 250,000 
Orange Triangle ..............04. 100,000 
*South Orange Park............... 25,000 
*This item of $25,000 was for park or parkway lands out 
in South Orange, on or near Grove road; formal action regard- 
ing which had not then, and has not since, been taken, 
