Roxbury and Dorchester, and to the westward Brookline, Brighton and Somerville. Upon the Shawmut peninsula, the original city of Boston covered only seven hundred and eighty-three acres, but by the reclamations this has been more than doubled. It absorbed Dorchester Neck to enlarge South Boston; took in Noddle's Island for East Boston; and annexed about all the other suburbs, so that the city now covers forty-three square miles. The hills have been partly levelled and the whole face of the ancient town altered, these improvements and the great changes wrought by fires obliterating the older narrow and crooked streets, having thus wrought a complete transformation. The alignments of the colonial maps can now hardly be recognized, and scarcely a vestige, beyond the three old burying-grounds and a few buildings, remains of primitive Boston. When the first settlers coming from Charlestown saw Shawmut or the Tri-mountain, it seemed to chiefly consist of the three high hills which they called Copp's, Beacon and Fort Hills, the highest of these, the Beacon, being itself a sort of tri-mountain, having three well-developed surmounting little peaks. These, however, were afterwards cut down, although the massive elevation of Beacon Hill, whereon the colonists burnt their signal-fires, remains the crowning glory of the peninsula.

BOSTON COMMON.

The city of Boston has a population of six hundred thousand, and the centre around which it clusters is the well-known Boston Common, set apart in 1634, and always jealously reserved for public uses, the surface rising upon its northern verge towards Beacon Hill. No matter by what route approached, the city has the appearance of a broad cone with a wide-spreading base, ascending gradually to the bulb-like apex of the gilded State House dome. Occasionally a tall building looms above the mass, or it is surmounted by church-spires and the fanciful towers of modern construction, or by a high chimney pouring out black smoke; but it is a symmetrical scene in the general view, though in many parts the surface of the actual city is very uneven. The Common rises towards the State House from the south and west by a graceful plane interspersed with hillocks. It is crossed by many pleasant walks, and has broad open spaces used for sports and military displays. It is rich in noble old trees, and covers nearly fifty acres, while to the westward is an additional level park of half the size, known as the Public Garden, separated by a wide street accommodating the cross-town traffic. This noted Boston Common was the ancient Puritan pasture-ground, and it is rich in traditions. In the colonial wars, the captured hostile Indians were put to death here, their grinning heads impaled on stakes for a public warning. Murderers were gibbeted, witches burnt and duels fought here. The impassioned George Whitefield, in the middle of the eighteenth century, preached here to a congregation of twenty thousand. An English traveller in the late seventeenth century described the place as "a small but pleasant Common where the gallants, a little before sunset, walk with their marmalet-madams till the bell at nine o'clock rings them home." Sometimes it was a fortified camp, and it was always a pleasure-ground, while during the great fire of 1872, which destroyed the chief business section with property valued at $70,000,000, enormous piles of hastily saved goods filled the eastern portions next to Tremont Street, bounding it on that side. Beacon Street is the northern border and Boylston Street the southern, there being rows of stately elms upon the walks along these streets and the pathways leading across the Common in various directions.

Flagstaff Hill, the most prominent eminence, near the centre of the Common, is surmounted by the Soldiers' Monument, rising ninety feet, with a colossal statue of America on the apex, overlooking the city. It was designed by Milmore, and is one of the most imposing memorials of the Civil War in the country. Nearby stood the "Old Elm," which was much older than the city, and was blown down in 1876. The adjacent sheet of water is the noted "Frog Pond" of colonial memory, and dear to the hearts of all old Bostonians. Near the northeastern boundary the Brewer Fountain, famous for its magnificent bronzes, the munificent gift of a prominent citizen, pours out its limpid waters. A colossal equestrian statue of Washington adorns the Public Garden. These attractive grounds are additionally embellished by tasteful little lakes, statues and lovely floral displays. On the southern side of the Common is the old Central Burying-Ground, which contains the grave of Gilbert Stuart, the portrait painter, who died in 1828. Beneath the edge of the Common on the southern and eastern sides is the great Subway, which crosses Boston, giving needed relief to the congested traffic, and was completed in 1898 at a cost of nearly $5,000,000, a most commodious, airy and well-lighted tunnel, accommodating many lines of electric cars, and providing speedy transit across the crowded city.

THE STATE HOUSE.

The famous Boston State House, fronting on Beacon Street at the summit of the hill, stands upon ground which, in the eighteenth century, was John Hancock's cow-pasture, his residence, for many years alongside, having been replaced by the ornamental "swell-fronts" of the Somerset Club. This rounded construction, known as the swell-front, is a distinctive feature of the old-time Boston residential architecture, and in many buildings the effect is heightened by the luxuriant overrunning vines of the Boston ivy, which is especially fine in the autumn. A Corinthian portico fronts the State House, which was built about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but has since been repeatedly enlarged, the latest extension being completed in 1898, so that the whole building is now four hundred by two hundred and twelve feet, the lantern on the dome rising one hundred and fifty feet. Upon the terrace in front are statues of Daniel Webster and Horace Mann. The eastern side of the last extension has a small park, and here, on top of Beacon Hill, has been erected a reproduction, practically on the original site, of the Beacon Monument, which was put there in 1790 to commemorate the success of the Revolution, but was removed in 1812. Within the State House is the Memorial Hall, containing the battle-flags of Massachusetts regiments and other historical relics. Portraits, busts and statues of the great men of Massachusetts adorn the interior rooms. From the lantern surmounting the dome is the finest view of Boston, with the mass of estuaries penetrating the land on all sides, the harbor and islands, and over the neighboring country for many miles. In the Representatives' Chamber hangs, high on the wall, one of the precious relics of the Old Bay State, the noted carved codfish, typifying a great industry. In the original State House preceding this one, down on Washington Street, in the heart of the older town, on March 17, 1785, Representative Rowe—who is also said to have been the suggester of throwing the tea overboard in Boston harbor—according to the minutes moved, "That leave might be given to hang up the representation of a codfish in the room where the House sit, as a memorial of the importance of the cod-fishery to the welfare of the Commonwealth, as had been usual formerly." Leave was accordingly given, and this emblem was brought in time to the present State House and hung on the wall, and it has always been an object of interest to visitors, not only as emblematic of sundry fishery problems that perplex the statesmen, but also as recalling a question always of lively interest in New England and elsewhere, "Does the codfish salt the