The First County Park System in America—IV 
PANORAMIC VIEW FROM EAGLE ROCK—LOOKING SOUTHEAST 
scape^ architects, in their report at the same time, 
emphatically disapproved of this plan of treatment, 
stating at length the legal, engineering and esthetic 
objections. It would be experimental, they con¬ 
tended. Percolation of the water through the raised 
banks might make the result uncertain. It would 
“inevitably destroy the handsomest and most 
valuable part of the beautiful fringe of fine forest 
trees now existing most of the way around the lake. ” 
The resulting loss of water flowing from the lake, 
under the binding contract between the Park Com¬ 
mission and the Lehigh Valley Company of June 
4, 1897, and with the Pennsylvania Company, that 
the commission would “not directly or indirectly 
do, or cause to be done, anything which would 
in any manner interfere with the natural flow of the 
waters of said Bound Creek,” should the raising 
the lake seriously diminish or stop the overflow, 
would make the Park Commission “liable to pros¬ 
ecution. ” 
As the loss of water from raising the lake five feet 
was by the engineer estimated at 550,000 gallons 
per day of a normal minimum flow of only 1,500,000 
gallons daily, the point thus raised may at any 
time become a most serious one, and result in heavy 
claims for damages against the county. 
Cost of Park. The estimated cost of dredging 
and properly treating the banks of the lake at 
its natural level was $2^0,000; and for raising the 
lake five feet, cleaning out the bogs, etc., with the 
destruction of the best part of the wooded banks and 
the prospective litigation with the railroad companies 
involved in this plan of treatment, was ^50,000. 
Modern High Finance. What the actual loss 
to the people of Essex County by the issuance 
of bonds at four per cent, and the additional 
^2,500,000 of bonds since issued for the parks at 
that rate instead of at the 3.65 rate, as with the 
first million issued, may, I think, be properly left 
to the future and for 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 con¬ 
centration 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 receipt 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 material¬ 
ized. Although the balance sheet of December 
31, 1896, showed a cash balance on hand of $1,209,- 
559, the outstanding obligations for land and other 
liabilities and contracts were then sufficient to 
absorb all but a relatively small portion of this 
unexpended sum. At the board meeting of Decem¬ 
ber 2 the landscape architects and engineers sub¬ 
mitted, under a resolution of September 17, 1896, 
a “general plan of the system of county parks 
and parkways,” 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 employees of the 
department, who were then in charge of the various 
phases of the work. 
Appointive or Elective Park Commissions. The 
time had run by so quickly since the appointment of 
the commission, twenty months before, that many 
friends of the park movement hardly realized 
that the work of the commission was by that 
time well begun. The public utterances, for 
