establishment of life-giving parks, embellished with appropriate fountains and statues and with the numberless graces of art, which at once gladden the eye and raise the standard of civilization, have kept abreast with its growth in wealth and numbers?

These are but few of the pertinent questions which must be answered by the zealous and honest acts of the generation of men already in active life. Here are the possibilities; all the elements and conditions are here; but the results must depend upon the wisdom and patriotism and energy of those who shall lead in public affairs. May they be clothed with a spirit of wisdom and knowledge akin to that which inspired those who conceived and executed the great work which we receive at your hands and dedicate to-day.

Address of Hon. Abram S. Hewitt.

Two hundred and seventy years ago the good ship "Tiger," commanded by Captain Adraien Block, was burned to the water's edge, as she lay at anchor, just off the southern end of Manhattan Island. Her crew, thus forced into winter quarters, were the first white men who built and occupied a house on the land where New York now stands; "then," to quote the graphic language of Mrs. Lamb, in her history of the City, "in primeval solitude, waiting till commerce should come and claim its own. Nature wore a hardy countenance, as wild and as untamed as the savage landholders. Manhattan's twenty-two thousand acres of rock, lake and rolling table land, rising at places to a height of one hundred and thirty-eight feet, were covered with sombre forests, grassy knolls and dismal swamps. The trees were lofty; and old, decayed and withered limbs contrasted with the younger growth of branches; and wild flowers wasted their sweetness among the dead leaves and uncut herbage at their roots. The wanton grapevine swung carelessly from the topmost boughs of the oak and the sycamore; and blackberry and raspberry bushes, like a picket guard, presented a bold front in all possible avenues of approach. The entire surface of the island was bold and granitic, and in profile resembled the cartilaginous back of the sturgeon."

This primeval scene was the product of natural forces working through uncounted periods of time; the continent slowly rising and falling in the sea like the heaving breast of a world asleep; glaciers carving patiently through ages the deep estuaries; seasons innumerable clothing the hills with alternate bloom and decay.

The same sun shines to-day upon the same earth; yet how transformed! Could there be a more astounding exhibition of the power of man to change the face of nature than the panoramic view which presents itself to the spectator standing upon the crowning arch of the Bridge, whose completion we are here to-day to celebrate in the honored presence of the President of the United States, with their fifty millions; of the Governor of the State of New York, with its five millions; and of the Mayors of the two cities, aggregating over two millions of inhabitants? In the place of stillness and solitude, the footsteps of these millions of human beings; instead of the smooth waters "unvexed by any keel," highways of commerce ablaze with the flags of all the nations; and where once was the green monotony of forested hills, the piled and towering splendors of a vast metropolis, the countless homes of industry, the echoing marts of trade, the gorgeous palaces of luxury, the silent and steadfast spires of worship!

To crown all, the work of separation wrought so surely, yet so slowly, by the hand of Time, is now reversed in our own day, and "Manahatta" and "Seawanhaka" are joined again, as once they were before the dawn of life in the far azoic ages.

"What hath God wrought!" were the words of wonder, which ushered into being the magnetic telegraph, the greatest marvel of the many marvelous inventions of the present century. It was the natural impulse of the pious maiden who chose this first message of reverence and awe, to look to the Divine Power as the author of a new gospel. For it was the invisible, and not the visible agency, which addressed itself to her perceptions. Neither the bare poles, nor the slender wire, nor the silent battery, could suggest an adequate explanation of the extinction of time and space which was manifest to her senses, and she could only say, "What hath God wrought!"

But when we turn from the unsightly telegraph to the graceful structure at whose portal we stand, and when the airy outline of its curves of beauty, pendant between massive towers suggestive of art alone, is contrasted with the over-reaching vault of heaven above and the ever-moving flood of waters beneath, the work of omnipotent power, we are irresistibly moved to exclaim, "What hath man wrought!"

Man hath, indeed, wrought far more than strikes the eye in this daring undertaking, by the general judgment of engineers, without a rival among the wonders of human skill. It is not the work of any one man or of any one age. It is the result of the study, of the experience, and of the knowledge of many men in many ages. It is not merely a creation—it is a growth. It stands before us to-day as the sum and epitome of human knowledge; as the very heir of the ages; as the latest glory of centuries of patient observation, profound study and accumulated skill, gained, step by step, in the never-ending struggle of man to subdue the forces of nature to his control and use.

In no previous period of the world's history could this Bridge have been built. Within the last hundred years the greater part of the knowledge necessary for its erection has been gained. Chemistry was not born until 1776, the year when political economy was ushered into the world by Adam Smith, and the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by the Continental Congress, to be maintained at the point of the sword by George Washington. In the same year Watt produced his successful steam engine, and a century has not elapsed since the first specimen of his skill was erected on this continent. The law of gravitation was indeed known a hundred years ago, but the intricate laws of force, which now control the domain of industry, had not been developed by the study of physical science, and their practical applications have only been effectually accomplished within our own day, and, indeed, some of the most important of them during the building of the Bridge. For use in the caissons, the perfecting of the electric light came too late, though, happily, in season for the illumination of the finished work.

This construction has not only employed every abstract conclusion and formula of mathematics, whether derived from the study of the earth or the heavens, but the whole structure may be said to rest upon a mathematical foundation. The great discoveries of chemistry, showing the composition of water, the nature of gases, the properties of metals; the laws and processes of physics, from the strains and pressures of mighty masses to the delicate vibrations of molecules, are all recorded here. Every department of human industry is represented, from the quarrying and the cutting of