96 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



to the different varieties of the Italian style of build- 

 ings. — Ed. 



Rockworks are pleasing objects, when well exe- 

 cuted ; but they should hardly be introduced, except 

 in places where their position indicates that something 

 of the kind is not unnatural — that the rock projects 

 inartificially through the ground, or that it may have 

 been laid bare by some needful excavation. The ma- 

 terials of rockworks should not be altogether foreign 

 to the geology of the district ; or, if they are so, their 

 natural stratification should be imitated as well as 

 possible, as, indeed, it ought to be in all cases; for 

 this, if skillfully done, will take off much from their 

 artificial appearance. It is a common, but a very 

 great error, to construct them of all the curious, rug- 

 ged, weather-eaten, or water- worn stones that can be 

 collected from the sea-shore or the bed of a river. 

 How such conglomerations should have ever been 

 imagined to be like actual rocks, it is difficult to ima- 

 gine. The slag of glass-houses, and the scoriae of 

 blast-furnaces, may be described to be materials quite 

 detestable — ugly in themselves, and unpropitious to 

 the unhappy plants which grow on them. We would 

 not have a rockwork a sort of out-of-doors mineralog- 

 ical museum, though some variety of stones is not 

 objectionable. One representing various geological 

 formations is more worthy of approbation, as it may 

 be made interesting and instructive in itself, as well 

 as ornamental to the grounds. If expense is to be 

 incurred, it is better that it should be laid out in this 

 way, than that it should be lavished on the purchase 

 or collection of mere curiosities. It may be added, 

 that for the construction of a rockwork, even of 



