Across Harlem River, to the north and east, is the attractive region of the Bronx, much of the surface being yet in its primitive condition as maintained in the old estates that have come down from the early days of the Knickerbockers. Here are being laid out several new and large parks. Van Cortlandt Park, near the Hudson, about four miles north of the High Bridge, covers about eleven hundred acres, Pelham Bay Park, on the shore of Long Island Sound, nine miles from the Harlem, seventeen hundred and fifty acres, and the Bronx Park, between them, six hundred and fifty acres. These three great pleasure-grounds are being gradually developed, and the plan is to connect them with magnificent tree-lined avenues six hundred feet wide. The western verge of Van Cortlandt Park finely overlooks the Hudson, and it is intended largely for military uses, with parade-grounds and rifle-ranges. It has an attractive lake; and the quaint old mansion where lived the Van Cortlandts, whose successive generations owned the estate, built in 1748, is preserved as a Museum of Colonial Relics. To the eastward, a shallow and almost aimless little stream, flowing from above White Plains down to Long Island Sound, with many pools and rapids, and occasionally broadening into mirror-like lakes, was long the eastern boundary of New York City. This is the Bronx River, coming through a green, well-watered and shaded valley, a half to three-quarters of a mile wide, and a considerable part of this bewitching region makes the Bronx Park, "Where gentle Bronx, clear, winding, flows The shadowy banks between; Where blossomed bell or wilding rose Adorns the brightest green." The wildness and seclusion of this place, its natural charms and romantic character, make one almost believe that New York cannot possibly be near such an attractive wilderness. Nature seems to have especially designed it for a park, and art cannot improve it. Huge rocks and giant trees flourish here, among them the Delancey pine, one hundred and fifty feet high and straight as an arrow, standing in a prominent position and having a huge branch reaching upward upon one side, with interlacing boughs, making it appear not unlike a gigantic harp. The Delanceys once owned the place. A "balanced boulder" is nearby, weighing hundreds of tons, yet very easily rocked. The Bronx in one portion flows deep down between high, rocky walls, where the thin-armed white birches wave their slender limbs a hundred feet above the water. Here was an early home of the Lorillards, now a Museum and large Botanical Garden. Here are also the grounds of the New York Zoological Society, the animals roaming in extensive enclosures, where they are placed, as far as possible, in their native surroundings.