Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1011

 ORNAMENTAL GARDEN STRUCTURES. 987 nipt their streams; and those which are avowedly artificial. The latter are sometimes constructed in the form of semicircular upright walls, the convex side lacing the stream, over ^'hich the water falls in one sheet ; and some- times, instead of the face of the wall being left upright, a mass of inatcrial is placed on the under side of it in a sloping direction, and either covered irregularly with large blocks of stone ; or smoothly paved so as to form an undulating surface, with a view of causing the water to pass over it, like the waves of a swelling, but yet, not tempestuous sea. Sometimes artificial cascades are formed by conducting the water along an architectural aqueduct, and terminating this structure in a ruined arch. This has been beautifully done in the garders of Schweitzingen, by an imitation of the ruins of a Roman aqueduct, fig. 1761. 1972. Fountitins. Water, Switzer observes, is " the very life and soul of a garden," whether it be the grovind plot of a suburban cottage, or the embellished lawn of an ex- teiwive villa. Two centuries ago, when jiictviresque beauty and botanical interest were little attended to in the gardens of Europe, fountains and architectural decorations were sought after as the grand sources of interest ; and one garden was distinguished from another by the expense which had been incurred in its waterworks, and in its mural and sculptural appendages. For the last century the construction of waterworks has been on the decline ; and, in proportion as they engrossed too much attentian before, they have, during that period, been comparatively neglected. The manufacture of artificial stone has contributed to the revival of this taste, by the facilities which it affords of forming elegantly shaped basins, and different forms of drooping fountains. By drooping foun- tains we mean those in which water is conveyed to a height, and then left to trickle down over an ornamental form, as ojiposed to jet or spouting fountains, in which water is forced to spout up vertically, as in fig. 1762. Another circimistance favourable to the construction of ornamental fountains is, the facility with which iron can now be cast into the most beautiful shapes, at a very moderate expense. With the artificial stone of Austin, or the kiln-burnt artificial stone of Coade and Seeley, which is as durable as the hardest marble ; with cast-iron shafts and jets ; and with iron or leaden pipes, there is now