_Parks and Open Spaces._--Edinburgh is exceptionally well provided with parks and open spaces. The older are Princes Street Gardens, covering the old Nor' Loch, Calton Hill, the Meadows and the Bruntsfield Links. The municipal golf links are on the Braid Hills. On the southern side Blackford Hill has been set apart for public use. Here stands the Royal Observatory, in which the great Dunecht telescope was erected in 1896. Harrison Park is a breathing spot for the congested district of Fountainbridge, and the park at Saughton Hall, opened in 1905, for the western district of the city. To the north of the Water of Leith lie Inverleith Park, the Arboretum and the Royal Botanical Garden. This institution has undergone four changes of site since its foundation in 1670 by Sir Andrew Balfour and Sir Robert Sibbald, and now occupies an area of 34 acres in Inverleith Row. It includes a herbarium and palm house, with an extensive range of hot-houses, a museum of economic botany, a lecture-room and other requisites for the study of botany. The most important open spaces, however, surround Arthur's Seat (822 ft.). This basaltic hill, the name of which is believed to commemorate the British king Arthur, who from its height is said to have watched the defeat of the Picts by his followers, is shaped like a lion _couchant_, with head towards the north. It is separated from the narrow valley, in which lie the Canongate and Holyrood Palace, by Salisbury Crags, named after Edward III.'s general William Montacute, 1st earl of Salisbury (1301-1344). At their base is the Queen's Drive (3½ m. long), named by Queen Victoria. Adjoining Holyrood Palace is the King's Park, used as a parade ground. Facing the crags on the south-west are the spots familiar to readers of _The Heart of Midlothian_, where stood Jeanie Deans's cottage, and between the crags and Arthur's Seat lies Hunter's Bog, used as a shooting range. Near here too are three small lakes, Duddingston, Dunsappie and St Margaret's, the last overlooked by the ruins of St Anthony's chapel.