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.