THE AQUARIUM, JANUARY, 1895. 



151 



WINDOW CONSERVATORIES. 



Of window ferneries we have seen 

 few better than those in the coffee- 

 room at the City of London Club, near 

 the Bank of England. The room is 

 sixty feet long, thirty feet wide, and 

 thirty feet high, and at each end there 

 is a central mantelpiece, with a large 

 mirror over it, and a window upon 

 either side of the fire place. The lower 

 halves of these four windows open into 

 a miniature conservatory of foliage 

 plants, and a different appearance is 

 presented by each of them. 



Each window- sash is four feet six 

 inches wide by five feet high ; but this 

 does not indicate the size of the fern- 

 eries, which are eight feet wide and 

 seven feet high near the window-pane, 

 with a glass roof sloping off to six feet 

 in height at the back. They are four 

 feet deep. 



We are careful in giving these di- 

 mensions, because window conserva- 

 tories are too often constructed of just 

 the same width as the window and 

 with the bottom on the same level with 

 the window-sill. In those here figured 

 the space for growing ferns extends for 

 more than eighteen inches on either 

 side of the window, so that large plants 

 can then be used, and portions only of 

 them contribute to the general effect- 

 in the room — an important advantage, 

 which could not be otherwise obtained. 

 Again, the depth of the conservatory 

 below the window-sill is another great 

 advantage, since it permits the use of 

 much taller plants than could other- 

 wise be employed. 



One of the conservatories has on its 

 right a series of pocket-like pools on 

 the face of the rocks, with a stream 

 trickling down from one pool to 

 another, until it is lost amongst the 



plants growing at the bottom. This 

 trickling is not seen unless the observer 

 is close to the left side of the window ; 

 but a reflection of it is seen in a good 

 sized mirror placed diagonally across 

 the further left angle of the case, ap- 

 parently at the end of a deep cave, the 

 edges of the reflecting glass being con- 

 nected with the rock work which is 

 covered with ferns. 



Another has for its central object a 

 fine young plant of Cibotium princeps, 

 under the gracefully arching fronds, 

 of which a little fountain mimics the 

 curves of the fern above. In this con- 

 servatory two pieces of reflecting glass 

 are inserted in the rock work at the 

 back, one on the extreme right, the 

 other on the extreme left, the result of 

 which arrangement is that the sides of 

 the conservatory are repeated, and that 

 the conservatory appears to be twice as 

 deep as it really is. 



The third has a deep aquarium, 

 through which a stream of fresh water 

 flows, entering below and oveiflowing 

 into a cavern on one side. The rock 

 work is here arranged so as to carry out 

 the leading idea of a large pool, the 

 surplus water of which descends into 

 another pool which is out of sight, and 

 the contents of the upper pool are ren- 

 dered visible through a sheet of stout 

 plate glass on the side nearest to the 

 window. 



The fourth has a dashing cascade 

 just in front of the spectator, the water 

 falling upon a shallow ledge oi rock, 

 which causes a greater splash than if 

 it fell into a pool. There is much less 

 light in the last two cases than in the 

 others, owing to the nearer proximity 

 of tall buildings, and consequently the 

 foliage is neither so varied nor so lux- 

 uriant. This drawback is, however, 

 overcome by using here a preponder- 



