218 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



light or heavy, according as it may be a suspension bridge, a reenforced 

 concrete bridge, or a stone bridge ; but in each case a proportion should 

 be preserved between the apparent strength of the parts and the work 

 which they are doing, even though it might be structurally possible to 

 save material at the expense of apparently functional form. If the 

 designer has a free hand, he may choose to construct a low horizontal 

 bridge in a flat marsh country ; a high sharp-pointed arch between two 

 rocky cliffs. If the bridge is to be considered as an architectural 

 structure, perfect as far as may be in itself, it is certainly the fact that 

 no bridge can be more unified than one of a single, well-proportioned 

 arch, or perhaps of a series of arches justly related to the effect of the 

 whole span. 



Usually, even the smaller footbridges are structures for an obvious 

 purpose, and they should be so designed. (See Plates 3 and 4.) 

 In a rugged natural landscape, a bridge may well be built, for instance, 

 of large rough blocks of unhewn stone, but these blocks should be laid 

 to make a proper and reasonable bridge, and not in unequal and irregu- 

 lar arches, which do not make the bridge less a man-made structure, 

 but succeed only in making it a bad structure. If it is important that 

 the hand of man be not visible in a particular view, and if a way for 

 traffic across a stream may be managed by means of rock masses which 

 are apparently natural, this indeed may be legitimately done, and such 

 an arrangement may form a very desirable feature, usually at a small 

 scale, in naturalistic rock gardens or similar designs. 

 ;/'. Except for the occasional use of a fallen log across a stream, it is 

 practically impossible to make anything which could be called a natu- 

 ralistic wooden bridge. It is nevertheless possible and often very 

 effective to construct a small bridge of logs and poles, perhaps with their 

 bark still on, which shall, by their surface and to some extent by their 

 form, be congruous and not unduly conspicuous in a natural scene. (See 

 Plate 12.) Usually, however, the quaint conceits of rustic work in 

 gnarled branches and contorted roots are to be avoided, except as an 

 occasional amusing eccentricity. Their forms are usually ugly, and 

 they look, if anything, more like the work of man and less like natural 



Roads and objects than do straightforward bridges of similar material. 



Paths Roads and paths, like all the other elements of landscape composi- 



