20C) 



THE FOUNTAIN. 



gree of violence that causes it to diffuse itself copiously in the 

 air, in which it seems to dart on every side its liquid arrows. 

 Now gracefully shooting, and taking a curve similar to that 

 of a beautiful plume of feathers, it falls with a festive and har- 

 monious sound ; and, as if in raillery, dashes itself against the 

 fluid particles that had been before dispersed, bathing at the 

 same time w4th its dewy spray the most elevated basin of the 

 fountain*. This basin empties itself, by ten pipes, into the 

 second, in which the fluid becoming redundant, is driven, by 

 eight other pipes, into the principal basin. Being there ac- 

 cumulated, it is distributed by a similar number of condu6lors 

 and their corresponding flutes, which, a6ling as valves, con- 

 fine it in certain depositories situated at the foot of the foun- 

 tain. The compression to which it is there subje6led, occa- 

 sions it to rise forcibly, and to make good its passage, as well 

 by the pyramids placed at the four angles of the level surface 

 of masonry, as by the eight lions, and the griffons recumbent 

 at their feet, which, with great rapidity, return it to the 

 basin whence it was derived. The abundance of the water 

 w^hich flov/s, by forty-six pipes -[-, forming a kind of convex 

 belt, is highly agreeable, and truly realizes all the embellish- 

 ment that art and ingenuity could devise. 



Our eyes, accustomed to view these surprizing efforts of the 



* Tlie water, flowing out of this basin, rises somewhat higher towards the cu- 

 pola of the pharos ; that is, it is elevated to the height of thirteeen yards and seven- 

 twelfihs, equal to the descent calculated from its primary source. 



f The most elevated basin empties itself by ten pipes ; the middle one by eight ; 

 the lions and griffons by sixteen ; and the pyramids by twelve ; forming in the 

 whole the above number. 



human 



