6o 
PARK AND CCMETCRY 
CONSERVATORY, GOLDEN GATE PARK, SAN FRANCISCO. 
few public squares the parks and pleasure grounds 
of the peninsula lie west of the main mass of the City 
and extend to the Ocean. Golden Gate park con- 
tains 1040 acres extending westward from Stanyon 
Street in a long parallelogram to the ocean. It has 
a most abundant water supply and a marvelous di- 
versity of surface. For miles in this part of the 
peninsula, the rounded sand hills and curving sand 
valleys once extended, somewhat wooded in places 
with gnarled scrub-oaks from ten to twenty feet 
high, or clothed with bush-lupins and multitudes of 
wild annual flowers, or sometimes mere drifting 
wastes of brown and gray sands. In such places 
the Park authorities planted millions of roots of a 
famous perennial sea-beach grass, Arimdo arenaria, 
that bound the sand together and gradually formed 
better soil. Lupin bushes were next planted, and 
soon the slopes gave place to greensward, flowers 
and trees. In other places the soil was immediately 
fit for Eucalypts, Acacias, species of Broom, Gorse 
and an immense number of semi-tropic trees and 
lesser plants. 
The undulating sand hills rise from twenty to 
a hundred feet above the sea level; Strawberry Hill, 
the central height of the Park, is three hundred feet 
high. On this hill is an observatory and water 
reservoir, and around its base is Stow Lake, an ir- 
regular and very picturesque circle of water, con- 
taining three rocky islands. The lake itself lies at 
such a height above the park that it serves as a res- 
ervoir supplying water for irrigation. It is becom- 
ing one of the most beautiful places in Golden 
Gate, so wide a view of ocean, bay, city and the 
surrounding country is obtainable even from the 
surface of the lake. Pllaborate plantations of trees, 
ferns and shrubs have been commenced over the 
hill, and about the shores. C. P. Huntington gave 
$25,000 to construct a cascade and waterfall from 
the reservoir on the top of Strawberry Hill to the 
lake below, and they are now completed. The cat- 
aract is two hundred feet long and has a descent of 
forty feet; the water then makes a plunge of fifteen 
feet, passes under a roadway, and descends seventy- 
five feet to the lake. Wells within the park grounds 
supply the needed water, and the pumps now built 
are capable of lifting 1,500,000 gallons to the up- 
per reservoirs every twenty-four hours. Flowing 
artesian wells have also been developed south of 
the Park, on city lands, and a large supply can thus 
be obtained. Water in abundance is an especial 
necessity to Golden Gate Park, as flowers, plants 
and lawns would soon disappear without it. 
Although San Francisco is very proud of its 
Park, which has received the most careful and com- 
petent management, and has been “out of politics” 
since its establishment, the appropriations have 
never been as large as for similar parks elsewhere. 
New York is said to spend about $190 per acre on 
Gentral Park for maintenance alone, while Golden 
Gate spends about $64 for that purpose, and about 
$96 on construction which is necessarily the princi- 
THE LAKE IN GOLDEN GATE PARK. 
