To obtain walks which shall be for long distances exclusively and uninterruptedly devoted to pedestrians, and a ride preserved in a similar manner for equestrians (except around the Reservoir), it must be necessary to lay out all the principal drives, rides and walks of the Park in lines having a continuous northerly and southerly course, nearly parallel with each other and with the avenues of the city, or these different lines of passage must, at certain points of intersection more or less frequent, cross over or under one another by means of bridges. I have already been obliged to express my opinion to the Board that the former method could not be reconciled with the structural principles of the plan first adopted as a basis of operations, and that it is as desirable that all the lines of travel for one purpose should be occasionally connected so as to form circuits and transcommunications within the Park as that each should be uninterfered with by any lines appropriated to a different purpose. In preparing the details of the plan, therefore, the latter plan has been pursued.

A walk will commence at the southeast entrance, which, passing up the ravine east of the nursery, will take the visitor through an arch under the drive to the head of the Promenade [I]; passing thence by the grand alley and under a second archway to the water terrace, a walk fourteen feet wide next leads him by the head of the lake and through the locust grove to Vista rock [P]. Another[203] branch leading westward from the water terrace will cross the arm of the lake by a foot bridge and proceed along the east shore also to Vista-rock. At Vista-rock a connection will readily be made, by action of the Croton Board, with the existing promenade of the old Reservoir, and eventually with that of the new. Although divided for a third of the whole distance, and although so laid out as to be imperceptible in the general landscape, this walk cannot be considered as indirect or circuitous, its average length being about six thousand two hundred feet, while by the most direct course possible, the distance between the same points is five thousand six hundred feet, or an addition of but ten feet in a hundred to a perfectly straight line. Its accommodation will equal that of a single alley on an average eighteen feet in width.

A second path will diverge from this at a point east of the nursery, and passing close to the large rock near Fifth avenue at Sixty-seventh street, will cross the Seventy-second street entrance-drive near the gate, where a crossing can be made without inconvenience, and thence through the valleys and by arches under the Seventy-ninth street entrance-drive and transverse-road to near Eightieth street, where it will divide, one portion continuing northward by the side of the lawn, towards the new Reservoir, the other turning westward and southward by the southeast corner of the old Reservoir and connecting with the central system of walks, first described. This system will thus have an extension northward, to the upper park independent of the Reservoir walk, and be conveniently accessible by similar protected walks from the Seventy-second street, Seventy-ninth street, and Eighty-fifth street entrances.

Another walk entering at the southwest angle of the Park is proposed, which would follow the course of the excavation made in opening for a sewer through the rock at Sixty-second street, and thus under the drive and ride to the play ground [C], and along the border of the lawn designated parade-ground in the plan [D], to the vicinity of the water-terrace. This will also have direct connections of a similar character, with the Seventh avenue and the Sixty-third street entrances. Over four miles of moderately level walk, exclusive of that upon the Reservoir wall, may thus be formed in the lower park alone, in which the walker can have no apprehension of being met or crossed by a vehicle or horseman.

The ride laid out, and now under construction, may be entered either by the Fifth avenue or Seventh avenue gates on Fifty-ninth street, or by the Sixty-third or Seventy-second street gates on Eighth avenue. Starting at the first, it will pass under the drive in the rear of the arsenal; under a bridge of the drive at the head of the pond, then approach and connect with the Seventh avenue entrance, then pass between the large rocks southwest of the play-ground and under the embankment of the drive at Sixty-third street, by the opening left for a sewer; then over the transverse road at Sixty-sixth street by the same bridge with the drive, then over the Seventy-second street entrance in the manner formerly proposed for the drive at the Military entrance, and so along the west part of the park to Summit Rock, the eastern base of which it will skirt to Eighty-sixth street,[204] above which no details of the plan are at present established. The length of the ride thus proposed in the Lower Park would be nearly two miles, and the rider, though passing at intervals near to and concurrently with portions of the drive, as desired by the Board, will find his way nowhere crossed by any road or walk. The arched passages proposed for both the walks and ride will be at an average distance of about three quarters of a mile apart, and in every case but two, they occupy positions in which artificial embankments with culverts beneath them will be otherwise required, so that the expense of constructing them will be chiefly that of the mason-work.

The number of men now at work on the Park is about 2300.

An increase of the number of engineers, draughtsmen and clerks is necessary to their best employment, and to enable me to carry out the wishes of the Board, as expressed in resolutions of the last two meetings.

Analyses of the soil of the Park are recommended to be authorized as a measure calculated to cheapen the cost of improving it.