December 14, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



599 



near the river-bank, sheltered from the glare, but just able to 

 catch the fresher air from the water. In an average American 

 town of the same size one would have gone, not to a garden, 

 but to the stadon, in order to get away as soon as possible, 

 and the transient population would have consisted merely of 

 those who could not get away. It would be interesting, from 

 a practical point of view, to estimate the gain to the business 

 interests of Coblenz from the influence of the Anlagen in in- 

 ducing strangers to stop off and not to hurry away. It vi'ould 

 be more interesting, from a philanthropic standpoint, to esti- 

 mate the gain to the physical and mental health of the Cob- 

 lenzers — to their life, in the fullest sense — from this ideal 

 utilization of a part of their river-front. 



Mount Airy, Pliiladelphia. LliarlCS L. hmiiey. 



Recent Publications. 



The Beauties of Nature. By the Right Honorable Sir John 

 Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.R.S. New York: IVIacmillan & Co. 



The subtitle of this volume, " The Wonders of the World 

 We Live In," will perhaps more truly describe it than the words 

 which appear on its cover, for the objects in the natural world 

 which make the strongest appeal to our sense of beauty are 

 not those chiefly discussed. There is an introduction of 

 some forty pages, it is true, wherein the power of scenery to 

 soothe and elevate is touched upon, and wherein we are 

 treated to some descriptions of the quiet beauties of English 

 landscape by Jefferies and Kingsley, while Humboldt is al- 

 lowed to rhapsodize on the sublimities of a tropical night, 

 Darwin is quoted to show the impressiveness of the boundless 

 wastes of Patagonia, Professor Colvin writes of the chastened 

 beauty of the scenery of Greece, and Wallace tells us how 

 keen is the enjoyment which comes from color in sky and 

 earth and water. But after this the reader finds little about 

 beauty or any other single quality or phase of nature, for there 

 is no pretense of any unity of purpose and hardly any connec- 

 tion of thought between the successive chapters or even be- 

 tween successive pages or paragraphs. It is not to be assumed 

 from this that the book will be found uninteresting. The fifty 

 pages devoted to plant-life treat in a pleasant way of some of 

 the striking. facts in the development of vegetation which bo- 

 tanical science has brought to light, and rather more space is 

 given to the history and characteristics of a very small frac- 

 tion of the two million or more species which make up the 

 animal kingdom as it exists, not to speak of as many more that 

 are extinct. Then we have a chapter on the Starry Heavens, 

 with some account of the ordering of the countless hosts 

 which wheel through infinite space. Still anqther chapter is 

 devoted to the sea, with the mystery of its depths and the 

 majesty of its swelling surface ; another to the mountains and 

 the forces which have lifted them up and are wearing them 

 away ; while yet another tells the story of the lakes and rivers, 

 whence they took their origin and what directed their waters 

 as they channeled their devious courses to the sea. The en- 

 tire universe, with its history through unnumbered jeons of 

 astronomic time, is thus laid under contribution, and there 

 seems no reason in any given instance why Sir John has se- 

 lected one topic out of any given .million, or why he has 

 chosen tp treat it in a particular way. 



Of course, when astronomy, geology, botany, zoology and 

 manv subordinate branches of natural science find a place in 

 a single volume, no subject can be exhaustively or compre- 

 hensively treated, but, after all, it may be said that the science 

 is genuine. Unlike many other attempts to cast in popular 

 form the results of learned research, the facts are stated with 

 accuracy and clearness. Young people especially will find 

 much in these fairly printed and attractively illustrated pages 

 to give that pure delight which accompanies the widening of 

 the horizon of their knowledge, and the bright boys and girls 

 into whose hands they come cannot fail to have their attention 

 arrested and their spirit of investigation stimulated. 



Periodical Literature. 



Most of our colonial towns have been made familiar to the 

 present generation by repeated descriptions and illustrations. 

 But, for some reason, Annapolis has not excited the same 

 amount of attention. It is pleasant, therefore, to find, in a re- 

 cent number of the quarterly Architectural Record, a delight- 

 ful historical and descriptive account of it, written by iVtr. T. 

 Henry Randall, who was born within its verdant borders, but 

 is now an architect of this city. 



Essentially a countryman by preference, says Mr. Randall, 

 the early colonial American of the southern states "loved 



above all things the comparafive solitude of a great country 

 home. When, however, his business or profession required 

 him to live a part of the year in some town or city, we find, as 

 a rule, the same general plan for the house followed as in the 

 country ; and the small allowance of room for garden, sur- 

 rounded by a high brick wall, is laid out with the evident pur- 

 pose of making it as secluded as circumstance would permit." 

 In Annapolis this type of house and garden was developed 

 better than anywhere else. "On the peninsula at the mouth 

 of the Severn River, nearly surrounded by exquisite sheets of 

 water, the first colonists found an ideal site for a prosperous 

 town, and between it and the Chesapeake Bay a harbor which 

 promised to give to it the commercial supremacy of the 

 colony. Here they laid out their town, not at random, but 

 with a fixed idea of making the most of all the advantages that 

 the formation of the ground possessed, circumstances which, 

 in later years, turned the tide of prosperity away from here 

 and left this quaint old town almost unchanged for a century 

 as ' the finished city of America.' 



" From its infancy," Mr. Randall then explains, "Annapolis 

 had a peculiar manner of development as unlike that of her 

 sisters as their appearance differs to-day from hers. She did 

 not begin with hurriedly built huts, scattered over the surface, 

 that were transformed later into comfortable dwellings and 

 arranged with order and symmetry ; but from the very first 

 her English colonists seem to have conceived a delightful 

 ideal in the planning of their new city. As a starting-point, in 

 the centre of the city, and upon the greatest elevation the pen- 

 insula afforded, they set apart a circle with a radius of 528 

 feet, which space was to be occupied by such buildings as 

 were necessary for the officers of His Majesty's Government. 

 To the west of this point they reserved another circle as the 

 site of the church. From these two centres streets were laid 

 out, radiating in all directions, and parallel with the river, and 

 others were carried from the shores of the harbor to the oppo- 

 site side of the city." 



The House of Burgesses was built in the larger circle, and, 

 when the seat of state government was hither transferred in 

 1694, the first state house was erected, while the first church 

 was built in the smaller circle in 1699. A small area was re- 

 served on the harbor for a dock and other commercial uses ; 

 and a tria^^ngular section of the city, connecting the state house 

 with this area, was reserved for purposes of commerce and 

 trade. Here small, closely built hipped-roofed dwelling-houses 

 and large store-houses were built ; and here, and in another 

 district west of the church, the tradespeople lived and worked, 

 while outside of these restricted limits they could do neither. 

 An open area westward of the church was, indeed, reserved 

 as a common for their enjoyment and use ; but all the rest of 

 the city, including almost the whole of its beautiful water- 

 frontage, was given up to the residences of the more aristo- 

 cratic citizens, the land being apportioned among them by the 

 Lord Proprietor, some receiving the whole of one of the 

 squares formed by the intersecting streets, and others one- 

 fourth of a square. " Only a few houses," says our author, 

 "have to-day their original terraced gardens leading to the 

 water and overlooking the harbor and the creek, but these 

 few are enough to give us a clear impression of what must 

 have been the appearance of this charming old town when, in 

 the height of its glory (1750-1776), its entire water-front, with 

 the exception of the wharves and dock on the harbor, was 

 lined with stately mansions surrounded by their gardens and 

 partly hidden among luxuriant foliage. The houses were, as 

 a rule, placed almost directly on the streets, with the walled 

 gardens at the sides and rear. These gardens still show traces 

 of the skill that was devoted to them. Covered porches were 

 few and small, and piazzas were almost unknown to the early 

 colonists. Shade-trees and arbors answered their purpose 

 then, for our forefathers still adhered to their English habits of 

 life, and it was left to succeeding generations to discover that 

 this southern climate required marked alterations in the ar- 

 rangements of their homes to secure perfect comfort and 

 convenience." 



We cannot here quote Mr. Randall's many detailed descrip- 

 tions of these stately Annapolis homes, which are illustrated, 

 moreover, by a large number of excellent photographs. But 

 the buildings and gardens are dignified and attractive. Of 

 " Acton," the homestead of the Murrays, he writes that it still 

 has "splendid old trees, hedges, flower-garden and lawn 

 stretching in all directions. The flower-garden itself, as we 

 see to-day so often in England, is separated from the lawn by 

 high hedges running down to the water's edge from the south- 

 ern side of the house, divided into beds by curiously planned 

 walks lined with Box." Of the Harwood or Lockerman 

 House, built in 1770, he says : "The garden at the rear falls 



