TEMPLES AND TOWERS OF THE VIRGEN. 
59 
scape. It is almost pure white, with brilliant streaks of carmine descending 
its vertical walls. At the summit it is truncated, and a flat tablet is laid 
upon the top, showing its edge of deep red. It is impossible to liken this 
object to any familiar shape, for it resembles none. Yet its shape is far 
from being indefinite; on the contrary, it has a definiteness and individu- 
ality which extort an exclamation of surprise when first beheld. There is 
no name provided for such an object, nor is it worth while to invent one. 
Call it a dome; not because it has the ordinary shape of such a structure, 
but because it performs the function of a dome. 
The towers which snrround it are of inferior mass and altitude, but 
each of them is a study of fine form and architectural effect. They are 
white above, and change to a strong, rich red below. Dome and towers 
are planted upon a substructure no less admirable. Its plan is indefinite, 
but its profiles are perfectly systematic. A curtain wall 1,400 feet high de- 
scends vertically from the eaves of the temples and is succeeded by a steep 
slope of ever-widening base coiu’ses leading down to the esplanade below. 
The curtain-wall is decollated with a lavish display of vertical moldings, 
and the ridges, eaves, and mitered angles are fretted with serrated cusps. 
This ornamentation is suggestive rather than precise, but it is none the less 
effective. It is repetitive, not symmetrical. But though exact symmetry 
is wanting, nature has here brought home to us the truth that symmetry is 
only one of an infinite range of devices by which beauty can be materialized. 
And finer forms are in the quarry 
Thau ever Angelo evoked. 
Eeverting to the twin temple across Little Zion Valley, its upper mass 
is a repetition of the one which crowns the western pile. It has the same 
elliptical contour, and a similar red tablet above. In its effect upon the 
imagination it is much the same. But from the point from which we first 
viewed them — and it is by far the best one accessible — it was too distant to 
be seen to the fullest advantage, and the western temple by its greater 
proximity overpowered its neighbor. 
Nothing can exceed the wondrous beauty of Little Zion Valley, which 
separates the two temples and their respective groups of towers. Nor are 
these the only sublime structures which look down into its depths, for simi- 
