1 82 XanDscape Hrcbitecture 



picture — two land piers and one stream pier are 

 connected by long spanning stones which carry- 

 parapets made up of large irregular blocks. It is 

 hardly necessary to point out the degree to which 

 this bridge combines picturesque beauty with dura- 

 bility, or to explain the fitness of such bridges for 

 rural situations in our own country. In the immedi- 

 ate vicinity of a very dignified house so rude and 

 unarchitectural a bridge would perhaps be out of 

 place, and the same is true of those portions of an 

 urban park where formality rules or where archi- 

 tectural works of importance are in view. But in 

 the sequestered naturally treated portions of parks 

 a bridge of this sort would be entirely appropriate; 

 and carrying a road or footway near a country home 

 of modest character or in a village suburb it would 

 be a most charming feature. Naturally we have 

 no wish to suggest that this bridge be copied either 

 in its special form or in the size and disposition of its 

 stones, although in both these respects it would be an 

 excellent model. It is illustrated merely to show how 

 very simply a stone bridge may be built and how 

 incomparably better in effect it is than the ugly 

 constructions in iron or the rough assemblage of 

 planks with which in this country we are so familiar. 

 Weather-beaten boulders as old as those in this bridge 

 at Leatherton, and as appropriate for bridge building, 

 lie by every New England stream, and it would need 

 no high degree of skill to put them to service. But 

 we seem to have thought the bare straight lines of 



