2i6 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



mension should run with the direction of the view towards the object 

 which it reflects, so as to provide as large a mirror surface as possible. 

 Pools may be surrounded by balustrades or decorative planting, or 

 their surface may be diversified with floating lilies, but the designer 

 who attempts such arrangements should first be sure that he is not for 

 the sake of a minor decoration spoiling the main purpose of the pool. 



A pool may often have a fountain as a dominant feature, or it may 

 be surrounded or diversified with a number of jets. While these foun- 

 tains are playing, the perfect reflecting surface of the pool is destroyed. 

 Often such fountains play only at times, merely delivering water enough 

 to keep the pool at its proper level. This is usually for economy of 

 water, but it may be also for the intentional alternation of the effect 

 of moving and of quiet water. In any case when a fountain does not 

 play all the time, the source of the water should be either some feature 

 which is sufficient in the design without the running water, as in the 

 Hercules fountain at Castello, or something which does not interrupt 

 the pool when the water is not playing, as at the gardens of the Gen- 

 eraliffe at Granada, or those of the Taj Mahal. 



A pool may form the central feature of a shady bosquet, where the 

 visitor looks down more directly on the surface of the water and sees 

 the reflection of the sky through the interlaced branches of the trees, — 

 an area of brilliant light and color brought down into the darkness of 

 the grove. Such a pool may perhaps lie deeper within its curb, and its 

 beauty may consist largely in the color of the water itself. If the pool can 

 be very deep, a clean white marble basin may show the water sapphire 

 blue. If this depth is not possible, a basin of colored tiles may produce 

 somewhat the same or many other interesting effects. If it be possible 

 that some time during the day a beam of sunshine should fall into the 

 pool leaving the rest in shadow, this should by all means be arranged. 

 Bridges ^ bridge is primarily a structure built for use. Though the land- 



scape designer may seize upon it as giving him a chance of erecting an 

 interesting object where he wishes it in his esthetic design, still it must 

 be fitted to carry traffic and it should look as if it were so fitted. A 

 bridge, therefore, should be in scale both with the road or path which 

 it carries and with the water, or possibly a ravine or another road, which 

 it crosses, when this second feature is of any importance in the com- 



