356 . FERNS. 



culture ! Such a one is that at Kockville, near 

 Dublin, the residence of Mr Thomas Bewley. It is 

 a house of about sixty feet square, divided into three 

 aisles by rows of rustic arches and pillars, the centre 

 being twenty feet in height, the sides a little lower. 

 It is heated to a tropical temperature by hot-water 

 pipes, and is covered by a double glass roof, an ad- 

 mirable contrivance for maintaining an equable tem- 

 perature, six inches of air between the two roofs act- 

 ing as a non-conducting blanket. The inner glass is 

 stained of a wine-red colour, which imparts a wonder- 

 fully rich tone to the light within, while it subdues 

 it to that degree of shade most congenial to these 

 shadow-loving tribes. 



The visitor enters through a glass door, and steps 

 down on its lowered floor of clean shingle. He seems 

 to have entered the precincts of some ancient fane, 

 now falling into ruin, where vegetation is silently 

 but rapidly exercising unchallenged dominion. The 

 massive buttresses of rugged gray stone, which divide 

 off the area on each side, and the pointed Gothic arches 

 that spring from them, are built with gaping joints, 

 and rude irregular projections, in and over which 

 mosses and lycopods and ferns are growing, arching 

 out, depending, or creeping over the coarse shaly 

 stone, and everywhere presenting the most charming 

 effects with their lovely green foliage ; requiring in- 

 deed a stern pruning, to prevent the rocky supports 

 from being completely concealed under the confluent 

 verdure. 



