345 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Ttie Mission of the Fountain. 
By Mrs. Herman J. Hall. 
Fountains playing through the trees, 
Give coolness to the passing breeze.” 
— Addison’s Rosamond. 
Streams sparkling in the sunlight or moonbeams 
across the quiet surface of a pool have often lowered 
FOUNTAIN OF TREVI AT ROME. 
the temperature of a heated and wearied body or 
brought forgetfulness to a mind distraught. 
The fountain, either active or still, was a feature of 
all public and private grounds from 
the days of Babylon to the middle 
of the nineteenth century, but it 
would seem that during the last 
fifty years the general taste had 
changed and that small lakes in the 
parks and the modern arrangements 
of lawn and shrubbery had set aside 
old time methods of introducing ac- 
tive water efifects in landscape gar- 
dening. Nevertheless, this fashion 
is bound to return. Singing rills 
and trickling streams have a fashion 
all their own, and have inspired 
poets and tuned the mind-strings of 
musicians too many centuries to be 
forgotten long. 
The Christian Bible frequently 
refers to the “fountain of living wa- 
ters” which must have reflected a 
material fountain in its symbolism. 
The Koran contains a passage de- 
scribing this garden delight as it appears among the j 
trees and flowers in Paradise. Inspired by this pas- i 
sage, the Sultana Valideh built that | 
jewel of Ottoman art, the Fountain ; 
of Valideh at Ak Serai. By right 
of her title she was privileged to 
build two minarets on her mosque, ' 
but she sacrificed one in order to j 
have funds to erect a fountain, say- : 
ing that her dear people were in : 
need of the refreshing waters, while | 
one minaret was sufficient to sum- j 
mon them to prayer. : 
The worship by the ancients of , 
both natural and artificial fountains i 
was general. Pausanius describes , 
one considered sacred at Achaia, i 
around which enormous stones had 
been placed upright, somewhat re- 
sembling the Druidical monument 
at' Stonehenge. The oldest sacred 
fountain extant is at Tulio in Bab\y 
Ionia, of date B. C. 3.000, and in | 
the Asyrian town Bavian there is | 
one of very early date, which is de- 1 
scribed as a rock sculptured into a j 
series of basins through which the spring is j 
conducted to a vase at the bottom, on which , 
two lions stand guard. Venerated and fabled waters | 
FOUNTAIN IN THE “NEW MARKET,” VIENNA. 
