Paris, which is one of the great manufacturing centers of the world, has the Bois de Boulogne of 2,250 acres at its very gates; and only five miles distant, skirting the eastern boundary of the city, is the Bois de Vincennes of somewhat greater area. Thirty-seven miles distant is the forest of Fontainebleau, which covers no less than 42,500 acres, the most beautiful of all French forests; while the gardens of Versailles, with their wonderful fountains, are but fourteen miles away. Berlin has its great pine woods on the east, west, and north of the city, the park development having been made to keep pace with other radical changes which since 1878 have transformed the German capital from a badly arranged, ill-built, and ill-kept town into one of the magnificent capital cities of the world. At Vienna the forest park known as the Prater, 4,270 acres in extent, extends along the east side of the city; and so diversified are the uses to which this recreation place is put, that perhaps no other single park in the world accommodates so many people. Large as these spaces seem, no one of the cites mentioned is satisfied with its present park area; but each one is striving to enlarge its opportunities for recreation. In 1893 Boston began the creation of its system of metropolitan parks, by the adoption of a report made that year by a special commission. Thirteen cities and twenty-six towns are now included in the metropolitan district; and upwards of ten thousand acres are controlled by a board of five commissioners. The funds for the acquirement and development of the system had been raised by loans represented by forty-year bonds issued by the State of Massachusetts, to be repaid from sinking funds made up of annual payments by the various cities and towns included within the district, except that the entire commonwealth has assumed about two and a half millions of one of the three loans, which aggregate about ten and a half millions. The annual payments for sinking funds, interest, and maintenance are made according to a table of percentages fixed by the supreme court of the state upon the report of a special commission appointed each five years. The original plan, although somewhat modified from time to time to accommodate new circumstances, has been adhered to with great fidelity as constituting the project for a complete outlying park system, to the gradual accomplishment of which the state and the district has committed itself. The appropriations, averaging between six and seven hundred thousand dollars a year for sixteen years, have been general in form; the commission has never made direct appeals or efforts to secure grants of money; but citizens concerned in the accomplishment of some particular portion of the system have interested themselves to secure the necessary funds. The woods reservations were acquired first; then Revere Beach and the banks of the lower Charles River; and lastly the twenty-seven miles of connecting parkways.