wishes to preserve the falls in perpetuity and in their original splendor for the benefit of the public.

While still in doubt as to what he should best do, he learned of the work of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society of New York City, in protecting Niagara Falls and the Palisades, and in the purchase and improvement, through State funds, of Stony Point and Watkins Glen, the society having become the custodian of the two latter reservations. Entering into communication with the trustees of the society, of which Dr. George F. Kunz is president, and Edward Hagaman Hall the executive secretary, he held several conferences with a committee from the board of trustees, the result of which was his decision to give the property to the State as a public park, retaining forhimself a life use and tenancy, with the right to make further improvements at his own expense, the custody of the property after his death to pass into the hands of the American Scenic Society, which should have the full control and management of it.

Matters had reached this stage just before the Christmas holidays in 1906. The proposed gift was then made known to Governor Hughes, who in his message on January 1, specially recommended that the proper legislation be undertaken at once. A bill providing for the acceptance of the gift was introduced, but it encountered opposition that resulted in an amendment eliminating the American Scenic Society as the eventual custodian of the estate. From this amendment

A BIT OF ROADWAY IN LETCHWORTH PARK.

serious danger was threatened to the property in the future, because power companies, through new legislation and permission from State officials, might be able, in spite of the gift, to acquire the right to dam the stream above the falls. "With all due respect," wrote Mr. Letchworth to a friend in Albany, "I cannot accept the amended bill, but must regard a vote

for it as a vote not to

accept the gift." A few days later the objectionable amendment. was stricken out, and the original bill passed. The name of the park was then changed by the Legislature from Glen Iris to Letchworth Park, "to commemorate the humane and noble work in private and public charities to which his (Mr. Letchworth's) life has been devoted, and in recognition of his eminent services to the people of the State."

A visitor to Letchworth Park, as it now exists, would probably

approach it from Portageville, a little station on that line of the Erie Railway which runs from Hornellsville to Buffalo. Portageville stands at one end of the famous Portage Bridge over the Genesee gorge. This bridge is 800 feet long and 234 feet high, and has been familiar in many photographs and engravings. After walking across the bridge the visitor enters Mr. Letchworth's domain by descent of a stairway and thence may drive or walk along a well-constructed winding roadway through the virgin forest until, at a distance of about a mile, he reaches a stone gateway through which he passes to the doorway of Mr. Letchworth's home. This house fronts on the canyon, and overlooks the middle, or larger, of the three cascades, the walls of the canyon there rising from the base of the falls to a height of 350 feet.

A spacious lawn spreads out before the

house and reaches the brink of the chasm, with a lake at one side of it, and a fountain in the center of the lake. The visitor notes the almost tropical luxuriance of the vegetable life around him. The grass of the lawn is wonderfully thick and green; the trees, whether of maple, beech or evergreen, display a marvelous thickness of foliage and surprising symmetry of form. All this, of course, is

size of many trees planted much earlier elsewhere. Some Norway spruces have grown to a splendor of height and thickness of foliage which seem almost to imply that the original habitat of this tree was a tropical, rather than a northern, clime. In the rear of the house, but removed to one side, has been laid out a large floral garden, oval in shape, and surrounded by a hedge of evergreens, twelve or more feet high, this serving as a wind break. Within this area familiar flowers of the garden, such as roses, nasturtiums, heliotropes, geraniums, and mignonette, grow to unusual sizes. One rarely sees in England more splendid floral growths than this domain affords,-not even in Cornwall. On an elevated plateau, not far from the house, stand several interesting memorials of the Indians. One of these is a section of what is known as "the big treaty tree of 1797," which originally stood near Mount Morris. It was under this tree that Robert Morris negotiated the purchase of the lands of the Genesee Valley, the Indians reserving 18,000 acres for Mary Jemison, the famous "old white woman of the Genesee." Near the tree stands the former cabin home of

Mary Jemison, as removed from its original site further down the river, and just outside the doorway of the cabin is Mary Jemison's grave, with the monument erected over it by Mr. Letchworth.

Mary Jemison originally was buried on the Buffalo Creek reservation, but the opening of a street making necessary the removal of the body, Mr. Letchworth caused it to be taken to Glen Iris." She was the most remarkable white woman ever married to an Indian. Born on the ocean in 1742, she went as a child with her parents to western Pennsylvania, where she was made a captive by the Indians during the French War, and afterwards became the wife of Hiokatoo, a Seneca chieftain, who was the most bloodthirsty of all the Indians at the massacre of Cherry Valley. She spent forty years with Hiokatoo, and afterwards prepared her memoirs, which were published in a book that is still famous with students of that period of American history. She declared in this book that, although Hiokatoo was famous for his ferocity in war, he had uniformly treated her with tenderness; he had never once been insulting in his conduct..