acre, and very thick with trees of pine and beech; and the pond had divers small rocks standing up here and there in it, which they thereupon called Spot Pond. They went all about it upon the ice. From thence (towards the N. W. about half a mile) they came to the top of a very high rock, beneath which (towards the N.) lies a goodly plain, part open land and part woody, from whence there is a fair prospect; but it being then close and rainy, they could see but a small distance. This place they called Cheese Rock, because, when they went to eat something, they had only cheese, (the governour's man forgetting, for haste, to put up some bread.") Winthrop's New England, Vol. 1, page 6.

To show how little is known of this beautiful region, it may be stated that Mr. Savage, in editing Winthrop's diary, in 1825, suggested in a note birch instead of beech, as the wood that grew on the island. Any one who now visits it will find the wood upon it chiefly beech, pine, hemlock and maple, and it must have been so in the time of Savage. The wood owes its exemption from the furnace to the protection of the surrounding water; for the gem of an island, though a perfect emerald in summer and amethyst in autumn, is so little valued as a thing of beauty that it was sold under the hammer a year ago for fifty dollars. That is probably fully up to the average price at which the whole 4,000 acres could be bought, and the buildings upon it would be dear at $60,000.

It may be safely asserted that no citizen of Boston, or even South Boston, could to-day stand on "Cheese Rock," with eyes in his head and taste in his heart, even though it should be "close and rainy," and afterwards think of any other site for a city park.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

Here are more than six square miles of beauty, in spite of the worst the ruthless wood-choppers have been able to do. All that art has to do is to give us easy access to all parts of it without spoiling the beauty.

This will not be the work of a day. All the better for that. A generation or two may well pass in making such a place what it should be. But a railroad, which should be the first thing after securing the site and settling the general plan, may be built in a year; and from the moment of its completion the park will be more enjoyable to the mass of our population than anything of the sort that exists on this continent.

But the cost?

That is not a material question. The true question is, -
Will it pay?

Let us see. Suppose ten miles or so of double track railway should branch off from the Boston and Maine, a little beyond the present Medford branch, leading up one of the valleys to Spot Pond, crossing over the eastern edge of that beautiful water on a viaduct, which will cost a million of dollars or two; then traversing the beautiful plain at the north end of it, and curving around Gov. Winthrop's "Cheese Rock," should come along down by Meeting-house Brook and the Mystic, till it joins and adds another track to the present Medford branch. Let us suppose the road, including the viaduct, cost $3,000,000 ready to run thirty trains of ten cars each around this loop every day. It will certainly cost to run these trains, as any railroad man knows, keep the road good, pay the Boston and Maine fairly for the use of its main track and depot, and pay seven per cent on the capital, not more than $1,500 per day. Fifteen thousand passengers, at ten cents a piece, raises this amount, and they could all be seated in the trains with seven or eight per cent of the room to spare. This is only about threequarters of the visitors that daily flock to the Central Park of New York, on the average, at probably a greater average cost. But let us suppose only one-third of this influx, or 5,000 per day, how long should we have to wait for the other 10,000?

Let us suppose that the 4,000 acres costs the city twice its present value, or $520,000, and this price is assessed on 2,000

acres, to be devoted to building lots. This would make the building lots stand the city in a little less than six mills the square foot. Is it objected that the city would have only 87,120,000 square feet of rocks to sell? Let it be so. Here are the bones of a paradise, and the flesh to clothe them is only two or three miles this side. We have seen in our own day a large territory of mud covered with gravel brought nine miles from Newton by steam at fifty cents a cubic yard. Suppose that was the right thing to do, it does not follow that the reverse process of carrying the mud of Mystic flats to cover the hills of Medford and Stoneham is the wrong one, and especially if by doing it the great want of the three great northern railroad lines, more wharfage, can be supplied. Mud and clay enough to cover 4,000 acres two feet deep can be spared from the valley of the Mystic, and the water left in its place will be worth more than the meadows and oyster-beds destroyed. Suppose it costs twice as much to carry a cubic yard of mud up four miles as to bring a cubic yard of gravel down nine miles, then it will cost seven cents and four mills to put two cubic feet of fertile soil on a square foot of rock. This makes the square foot of building land stand the city in eight cents. With two cents more for access to it, the minimum price might be fixed at ten cents per foot including half the adjoining streets, and the whole 87,120,000 would be bid off and built upon as fast as it could be brought into the market. If occupied in lots averaging a quarter of an acre apiece, it would accommodate a population of about 50,000 people, and give about 10,000 daily passengers to the railroad. It will be noticed that this operation gives the city 2,000 acres for the Mount Andrew Park for nothing.

The name is here anticipated. The best beloved Governor of Massachusetts has a right to give his name to the loveliest eminence in what will be a Massachusetts as well as a Boston park, and that beautiful mount may well name the whole.

Spot Pond, which has long refused to answer to the name of Lake Wyoming, a sheer plagiarism, will perhaps consent to be called Lake Winthrop, in honor of its brave and noble dis

coverer.

To return from the name to the nominee, it may be considered to be abundantly demonstrated that population within half an hour of a great city is governed by the cheapness of transportation. A far lower rate of fare between a man's home and his shop will create a far better paying business than the present. This is a solemn fact which railroad directors in this neighborhood still have the stupidity to ignore or deny, to the great detriment both of their stockholders and the public. Let them not suppose they have a monopoly of the great inventions of Watt and Stephenson. The wit of the dead belongs to all the living. The people have a right, as against either paid-up stock or watered stock, to breathe pure air and see pleasant sights, and use the eternal forces of nature to that end at fair cost. It will be their own fault if through their own proper organization they do not secure the enjoyment of this right. Mount Andrew Park will pay. It may take a keen-sighted corporation to see it at first; but it only waits for the waking up of the people to their own rights and interests to make it their own common property, both the park and the cheap road to it.

The buggies and coaches object to this park that they cannot get to it by land. This is a misfortune to them, but not much of a one to the infantry and foot soldiers, who are likely to be a vast majority, on all sides of the water, as long as it is possible to raise steam. The same wise objection lies against Boston itself to all the cities north of the Charles or Mystic; nevertheless, wheels do not entirely avoid bridges.

This honorable committee will make short work with this or any other objection, should they, before making their report, stand on a fair day where Governor Winthrop dined on cheese. The surrounding scenery will speak for itself if they

will give it the opportunity. In that case, if they are at all inclined to the phraseology prevalent in Governor Winthrop's day, they will report that this vast tract has been preserved a wilderness through more than two centuries down to this age of overcrowded population and steam by a remarkable interposition of Divine Providence. And such a wilderness it is, they will find, if they explore it, that the same thing might happen to-night which happened to the excellent governor soon after he discovered it, who going out to shoot got lost in the woods, and took shelter from the rain during the night in an Indian's hut which he found vacant. But before morning a lady, whom he calls a "squaw," came seeking the same shelter, and he was obliged to bar her out.

Adjourned to Tuesday, November 9.

JAMES M. BUGBEE, Clerk.