From the Monument garden westward a canal 3,600 feet long and 200 feet wide, with central arms and bordered by stretches of green walled with trees, leads to a concourse raised to the height of the Monument platform. Seen from the Monument this canal, similar in character to the canals at Versailles and Fontainebleau in France and Hampton Court in England, introduces into the formal landscape an element of repose and great beauty. At the head of the canal a great rond-point, placed on the main axis of the Capitol and the Monument, becomes a gate of approach to the park system of the District of Columbia. Centering upon it as a great point of reunion are the drives leading southeast to Potomac Park and northwest by the Riverside Drive to the Rock Creek system of parks. From this elevation of 40 feet the Memorial Bridge leads across the Potomac directly to the base of the hill crowned by the mansion house of Arlington. [Illustration: SITE OF THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, 1901] Crowning the rond-point, as the Arc de Triomphe crowns the Place de l’Etoile at Paris, should stand a memorial erected to the memory of that one man in our history as a nation who is worthy to stand with George Washington--Abraham Lincoln. Whatever may be the exact form selected for the memorial to Lincoln, in form it should possess the quality of universality, and also it should have a character essentially distinct from that of any other monument either now existing in the District or hereafter to be erected. The type which the commission has in mind is a great portico of Doric columns rising from an unbroken stylobate. The foregoing recommendations were among the fundamentals of the plan of 1901. Ten years were required to embody them in legislation. To-day the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Memorial Bridge are completed along the general lines suggested. [Illustration: THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, MEMORIAL BRIDGE, AND RIVERSIDE DRIVE, PLAN OF 1901] There are many other features of the McMillan plan that the report of 1901 describes to which attention is called in the subsequent pages of this volume; thus there is the Rock Creek Parkway, the Anacostia Park development, the Fort Drive, the parkway along the Palisades of the Potomac to Great Falls, and the Mount Vernon Highway. The plans for these projects required authorization by Congress and time to make necessary land purchases; but at the present time there is indication that they will be completed in the near future. The day has come when the Greater Washington, or the metropolitan area of Washington, is being brought into the scheme of development of the National Capital. The plan of 1901 reasserted the authority of the original plan of L’Enfant, extended to meet the needs of the Nation after a century of growth in power, wealth, and dignity, and also marked the path for future development. [Illustration: THE FUTURE WASHINGTON] CHAPTER XV