ATLANTIC CITY.

TLANTIC CITY is one of the most popular ocean resorts in the United States, and is especially notable as possessing exceptional . advantages as a winter resort as well. Many eminent physicians in Northern cities who have been in the habit of recommending Florida, Colorado, and California to their pulmonary patients for climatic relief, are now urging the advantages of Atlantic City during the winter months; and hundreds of the leaders and followers of Fashion in New York and Philadelphia run down there for a few weeks of rest and recuperation. A number of the hotels are kept open the year round, and the rest are the earliest to open and the last to close for the strictly summer season. The resort is thus rapidly becoming the American Brighton and Margate, and like them its seasons attain a "height" twice a year, during the usual summer weeks of sea-side loitering and in the months of March and April.

Atlantic City is situated in Atlantic County, N. J., on Absecum Beach, a sandy island extending from Absccum Inlet on the north to Great Egg Harbor Inlet on the south, ten miles long, and nearly one mile wide, and separated from the mainland by a strait locally known as "Thoroughfare." It is sixty miles southeast of Philadelphia, with which it is connected by three railroads, two broad gauge and one narrow gauge, and is reached in ninety minutes from the Quaker City, at an ordinary cost of $1 for the round trip, and of fifty cents for numerous special excursions. The railroads maintain several excursion houses at the southern end of the island for trip or day tourists, and there are ninety-four hotels, beside many cottages and boarding houses, furnishing an aggregate accommodation for 40,000 time or season guests. The city was incorporated 1854, has Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Friends' churches, and publishes regular and season newspapers.

The long avenues, named after the different oceans, stretching up and down the island, and the cross streets, bearing the names of the various States in the American Union, and running down to the water's edge, are all delightful drives. The sandy roads are kept well sprinkled, hard as concrete, and free from dust; and in the early morning and late afternoon are filled with phaetons, victorias, and larger vehicles of the richest style. At low tide the beach is a most attractive place for driving, and the horses go prancing

and pattering over the hard sand just out of reach of the waves for miles along the coast. At low tide, also, the adventurous walk out in the wake of the surf to a distance that would surprise them could they accurately measure it when the tide was full. The bathing is superb, there are ample facilities for the little folks to disport in the sand to their heart's content, and bathing and playing are adequately guarded against danger. A striking feature of Atlantic City as a seaside resort is the large number of private cottages, owned chiefly by the business men of Philadelphia, and occupied by their families through and beyond the season. Permanent population, 1879, 1,043; 1880, 5,477; 1885, 7,942; 1889, 10,150.

CAPE MAY CITY.

APE MAY CITY, a sea-side rival of Atlantic City, and possessing many attractive features of its own, is built upon the extreme point of the cape from which it takes its name, the southern end of the State of New Jersey. It is eighty-one miles from Philadelphia; and is reached therefrom by the West Jersey Railroad, operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad company, in a little over two hours, or from Camden, N. J., in one hour and fifty minutes. The county, cape and city, derive their name from Cornelius Jacobus May, a navigator in the service of the Dutch West India Company, who visited Delaware Bay in 1623. The territory embraced in the county was purchased from the Indians in 1630 by a company of Dutch colonists, whose deed is still preserved in the archives of the State of New York at Albany. A local tradition asserts that William Penn, on his voyage to the Delaware River in 1682, landed at this point, and was charmed with its attractiveness as a bathing place. For more than fifty years it has possessed a wide-spread reputation as a summer resort, and within that time has experienced changes and improvements that only its intrinsic worth could justify.

Among the attractions peculiar to the place are the drives to Cold Spring and Diamond Beach, where thousands of sparkling pebbles, known as Cape May diamonds, are found. Cape May Lighthouse stands within the limits of the city, and across the waters of Delaware Bay at Cape Henlopen is its twin light, the two defining in the darkest night the entrance to the bay and the river. The Cape May Athletic Club and the Cape May Driving Club furnish exciting and gentlemanly sporting features, to which are added in "the

season," regattas, concerts, balls, and the choicest social diversions. Within a few minutes' ride by rail is Cape May Point, a delightful suburb of the older city. The Point is charmingly situated, and, as its name indicates, is the extreme southern end of the New Jersey coast. With Delaware Bay on the west, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east and south, the cape presents what is justly considered not only the best but the safest bathing-ground on the entire coast of the United States. Thousands of bathers, of all ages and both sexes, sport in the waters, while white sails and puffing steamers glide by, in plain sight of the beach, to all parts of the world. A magnificent drive, fifty feet wide, extends along the whole sea front, flanked on the ocean side by a broad promenade ten feet wide, that sweeps along in graceful curves for a distance of nearly two miles, and is as smooth as a ball-room floor.

The principal avenues of the city are covered with shells from the sea, well rolled, sprinkled, and kept free from dust. The hotels and cottagesthere are thirty-one of the former with accommodations for 6.000 guests--are in close proximity to the unsurpassed beach, and the latter are so numerous and tasteful as to justify the popular name of "The Summer City by the Sea." Though well-known and appreciated long before society demanded sumptuous ways and means of combining pleasure and recreation at seashore and on mountain annually, Cape May City has gradually become a summer suburb of Philadelphia, to which the wealth, culture, and refinement of the world are made welcome. Permanent population, 1889, 2,000.

OLD POINT COMFORT.

LD POINT COMFORT is not only one of the oldest hygienic resorts in the United States, but it is one of the very few old ones

whose popularity has not been suffered to wane with time. Its climate is unsurpassed for salubrity, and it possesses a marked advantage in its equability. The averages in thermometer range during a period of ten years were 48°, 52°, and 63° in spring; 60°, 74°, and 76° in summer; 70°, 59°, and 46° in autumn; and 45°, 44°, and 42° in winter. This record shows an absence of sudden and depressing changes in temperature which commends the resort to the really sick, the invalid, and the convalescent. It is, too, for this reason, a favorite stopping-place for invalids seeking recuperation in the balmy groves and beside the tropical waters of Florida, as well as those returning