t Exhibition of London, the number of
visitors to the Zoological Gardens increased from 360,402 in the year
before to 667,243; and in 1862, the time of the second and
International Exhibition, it leaped from 381,337 in 1861 to 682,205. The
number of visitors to the London Garden has been steadily on the
increase since its foundation. In 1863 the largest number up to that
time, except the Exhibition years, was 468,700, and by regular
progression annually it reached in 1871 the large amount of 595,917
persons.

The situation of our proposed Gardens is most admirable in every way.
Stretching along the west bank of the Schuylkill for nearly a third of a
mile; opposite the principal entrance to the Park on one side, and the
West Philadelphia approach by Thirty-fifth street on the other; directly
on the route to the Centennial Exhibition; contiguous to the great
railroad artery of the United States, the Pennsylvania Central, a
sideling from which will enter the receiving-house of the society
(marked D on the plan), and thus enable animals and curiosities from all
parts of the United States to be carried without change of cars directly
to the Gardens, or from the East Indies, China, Japan, South America and
the Pacific islands with but one trans-shipment, while the canal
alongside enables freights of all kinds and from any part of the world
to be deposited at the very entrance-gates; the ground rolling and
fertile, rising in the centre, and sufficiently elevated to be away from
the floods of the river; larger by some acres than the Zoological Garden
of London; interspersed with handsome trees, many of them of noble size,
planted by John Penn, whose family mansion, "Solitude," still stands
(35) within the proposed enclosure, and with slight alterations will
make a handsome museum for the society; the old West Philadelphia
Waterworks (20) only needing an engine to force the water into the lake,
around which will be the abodes of the aquatic animals, and from whence
the natural slope of the land will permit the irrigation of the whole
tract; the great sewer for the use of the western portion of the city,
now in process of construction, passing through the southern end of the
Garden, and running along the bank of the river to empty below the dam;
convenient to all parts of the city by means of the city railways and
the Reading Railroad;--these and many other advantages, which an
examination of the illustration of the grounds will