48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



of the Fens landscape southward of it through the arch from the important viewpoint 

 on Commonwealth Avenue Bridge. Care was taken to design the railroad bridge (which, 

 of course, had to be paid for out of the park fund) without side parapets or fences. With 

 the usual obtuseness as to the beauties of landscape, the beautiful view has been blocked 

 by high board fences. It only remains now to paint staring advertising signs on these 

 fences to complete the offensive obtrusion. It is to be hoped the Park Commission will 

 some day substitute a woven wire fence on the south side (none is needed on the north 

 side) of this railroad. 



Agassiz Road, which crosses the main basin of the park, was dipped down to the 

 lowest possible elevation to keep open the view through the length of the park. The Fen- 

 way, which is the main drive, being wide and accompanied by a bridle path, was made 

 to swing to the east boundary and follow it, in spite of its greater length, because the 

 borings in the salt marsh and mud flats showed hard bottom to be very much deeper 

 down along the west side of the park than the east side. Incidentally there are more 

 numerous and more important entrances on this east or cityward side. The waterway 

 was made crooked to simulate the windings natural for a channel through a salt marsh, 

 and while the boundaries prevented the retention of the original channel, part of them 

 were availed of. As is usual in park designing in the naturalistic style, more variety 

 of scenery was compressed into the design than would ordinarily be found in nature. 



Agassiz Bridge was designed with five small arches, so as to gain headroom by dimin- 

 ishing the thickness of the arch in order to permit canoeing. The channels being narrow 

 and tortuous, and the railroad bridges having been divided into three spans, likewise 

 to gain headroom, it was designed to limit boating to canoes. Five arches were used partly 

 for picturesque efl'ect, but partly as expressing the greater accommodations seemingly 

 needed for the waterway, which had to pass the floods of Stony Brook rapidly during 

 the low stages of the tide. Not being necessarily an imposing mass of masonry like Boylston 

 Bridge, it was designed in an ultra-picturesque style, almost suggesting the interesting efl'ect 

 of a partly ruined, but still standing and useful, ancient piece of comparatively unskilled 

 masonwork. The banks about it were planted, for the sake of harmony with this idea, 

 as widely as possible. Such art motives do not usually occur to gardeners nor, if they 

 exist, are they apt to be appreciated, and one may therefore expect to see the plantations 

 on these slopes gradually transformed to tall, bare-trunked trees, with smooth, tame 

 turf covering the ground under them, if indeed, with the excessive shade, any ground- 

 cover is maintained. 



The five-arch bridge at Huntington Entrance was designed with as marked formality 

 as Agassiz Bridge was with complete informality. The reason for this marked contrast 

 of motives arose from the circumstances of the case. Huntington Entrance was formal 

 and the walks under and the foot bridge closely associated with this five-arch bridge, 

 and the greater width and importance of the drive and walks and bridle-path tended 

 to artificialize the surroundings and called, in the aggregate, for a more dignified treatment. 

 The walks under this bridge were introduced in order to aff^ord access from this impor- 

 tant entrance, near a large population in which children abound, to the important shore- 

 path. This would not only lessen the danger, and feeling of danger, of women and children, 

 but would do away with the unpleasant alertness which drivers and riders have to exer- 

 cise at a grade crossing, and would, especially, enable equestrians to "let out" their horses 

 freely from the Agassiz Road crossing to the Parker Hill Entrance. A foot subway was 



