425 



surface of the ground, are always flanked and additionally secluded 

 by thickets of foliage, and their masonry is half covered with vims 

 and creepers. Generally they have no parapet, but a ridge of earth 

 and rocks, covered by a loose hedge of shrubs, with a falling habit, 

 rambling over their face. In the Enterdale and Eastwood arches 

 (which were the first built) the planting has now been done long 

 enough to fully exhibit this character. If the object of these con- 

 structions, instead of the simple safety and convenience of those 

 using both drives and walks, had been, as seems to be yet quite 

 generally supposed, the making of an architectural display, none of 

 these precautions would have entered into their design. As it is, so 

 far from being obtrusive objects, they are passed by those in car- 

 riages, in most cases without being observed. They serve the pur- 

 pose of shelter, upon occasion, from showers, and make a less num- 

 ber of special structures necessary for this purpose. They are lined 

 with wood to avoid the drip which would occur from the condensa- 

 tion of moisture on stone under the circumstances. 



Such other sheltered seats as have been thought to be required 

 are mainly low structures of sassafras logs, are, or are to be, in the' 

 shadow of trees, and draped with creeping foliage, and are as modest 

 and secluded as is consistent with their purpose, which requires that 

 they should be readily distinguished when the need for them arises. 

 Besides these shelters, and some low, vine-covered trellises, only two 

 buildings, a cottage and barn, have been placed on the ground. 

 These are in the midst of wood, and only their roof-trees can be 

 discerned from the more frequented parts of the park. The cottage 

 commands a distant view through a vista among the trees, but itself 

 enters decidedly into no landscape. With one exception, the bridges 

 thus far built are of wood, or rude field-stones, low, for the most part 

 lost in foliage, and as inconspicuous as without greatly increased ex- 

 pense it would have been possible to make them. There is one 

 bridge which serves four different routes of connection besides 

 spanning a water-course, and which commands two distinct districts, 

 seen comprehensively from no other point. A considerable and 

 prominent construction was here a necessity, and it has received a 

 careful architectural treatment. Its position is nevertheless retired 

 rather than conspicuous, and it will be flanked and deeply shadowed 

 by the associated plantations. When the colors of the now fresh 

 cut stone shall have been subdued, the bridge will be much less ob- 

 trusive in the landscape than an ordinary farm-house or barn. 



As to the apprehensions, sometimes expressed, that the park is to 

 be everywhere disturbed, as some foreign parks are, with artificial ob- 



