224 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
breath of fresh air and a glimpse of green. The 
sewage problem vanished with the houses ; and 
what is the result? An area of almost three hun- 
dred acres is reclaimed from a wretched and un- 
healthful development and made a place of delight- 
ful beauty. The higher land surrounding it is rid 
of a neighboring nuisance, and its value tremend- 
ously increased by its proximity to a permanent 
park, to which the years will only add fresh 
splendor. 
Orange Park, also under the control of the Essex 
County Park Commission, is another example of 
the wisdom of making glad the waste places. This, 
too, was a marshy tract of about fifty-two acres in 
lawns, the swamps playgrounds, and the sites of 
the tenements gardens. Here, also, the value of 
surrounding land was greatly increased by the im- 
provement, so that the money expended on the park 
was more than returned in increased ratables. A 
veritable miracle was wrought, a piece of forgotten 
swamp land became the rendezvous for rich and 
poor ; upon the drives tlie handsome equipages of 
Orange people are daily seen, and cnildren delight 
in its fair lawns, while the flower displays are beau- 
tiful. 
P)Ut there is another function of a Park Com- 
mission in the selection of its lands. It should not 
only restore, it should preserve. It is more and 
the cities of Orange and East Orange, called Par- 
row Brook Swamp. It was cursed further by the 
presence of quicksand, which made it dangerous in 
wet weather, mosquitoes, and noisy frogs. A few 
mean tenements stood about its edge, but no one 
had been bold enough to attempt to build very far 
within it, yet within a block was Harrison street, 
one of the handsomest residence streets in Orange. 
It was bounded bv streets on the map, but the prop- 
erty was so poor that they had never been opened. 
The Park Commission began about four years ago 
and improved this in much the same manner as 
Branch Brook Park. A thorough drainage system 
was first inaugurated, and the superfluous water 
gathered into a little lake. Then the bogs became 
more difficult each year to find in the great metro- 
politan district surrounding New York any remnant 
of the natural beauty of the country, and so it 
becomes the duty of the Park Commission to set 
aside those places that remain, to be perpetuall}^ 
Riis in urbc. The Essex County Park Commission 
selected for this purpose two tracts upon the 
Orange Mountains, which are called, because of the 
reason for their taking not parks, but reservations. 
One of these comprises about 400 acres immediate- 
ly surrounding Eagle Rock, in West Orange. The 
land lies along the crest of First Mountain, a mass 
of trap rock rising abruptly from the plain below to 
a height of about one hundred and fifty feet, with 
an elevation above the sea of from two hundred I0 
