PARK AND CEMETERY. 
81 
merely cutting away the rock work and 
making a plain job. But haven’t we had 
square blocks long enough and are our 
designers not capable of something bet- 
ter? 
Another unthinkable pile of stone is seen 
in Fig. 4. This is also from a monument 
design book. The cross is very badly out 
of proportion and defaced by rock work. 
The little vine seems lost in a pile of 
grout. The piece of rough stone below it 
has not a particle of shape, and the two 
bases have not had much done to them 
since they left the quarry. One might say, 
Why desecrate the cross form by throwing 
grout around it? 
There are other poor types of crosses, 
with the faces polished or otherwise fin- 
ished and the sides left rough. These are 
generally, like Fig. 4, illustrated, very 
badly designed and have rock-face bases. 
This job would look much better when 
the proportions of the cross are corrected ; 
also by placing under it a decent base, 
well cut. These cross jobs looks as if 
they were never designed on paper, but 
were given a workman to cut from the 
office boy’s measurements. 
There should come a time soon when 
men who do not know a well-proportioned 
monument will leave designing alone, and 
as soon as it is understood that it is im- 
possible to have an eye and brain judg- 
ment for proportion without being trained 
to artistic appreciation, better monuments 
will result. 
There are plenty of trained men who 
are capable of designing good proportions 
and decorations who have turned their at- 
tentions to other branches of design be- 
cause of the poor specimens of art in mon- 
uments. Many retailers who have gone 
into monument selling from some other 
business do not understand that they are 
not only dealing with durability, but also 
with beauty, which can be made only by 
art training. The dealer should make his 
stock more artistic. There are books and 
magazines, too, that would give him bet- 
ter artistic understanding in selecting de- 
signs that would help to make beautiful 
cemeteries. Rock monuments are gener- 
ally the very crudest forms we have. It 
does not require artistic intelligence to de- 
sign them nor to cut them. No dealer can 
claim they are beautiful ; he can only tell 
the customer it is very large for such a 
small price. 
Fig. 10 is a fair sample of the thou- 
sands in stock; just a large cobblestone 
with some letters on it. The only art in 
connection with it is the art of the travel- 
ing crane or derrick which lifts it around. 
They continue to be sold because of the 
material, which is disgraced by such de- 
signs. 
Fig. 11 is one of many similar designs 
supposed to represent the unfinished life. 
Only one corner and part of the face 
have been cut, the rest left as it came out 
of the quarry. An attempt has been made 
to use a good design of fairly good pro- 
portions, but the rock work has spoiled it. 
The work as it should be is seen at Fig. 12. 
All sides have been finished, the columns 
have been drawn in length in proportion 
to their height, and the second and bot- 
tom bases have been overhauled by dimin- 
ishing the height and widening the washes. 
Fig. 13, taken from a prominent design 
book, is another extreme attempt at monu- 
ment building. There is absolutely no 
sense of proportion in any of its measure- 
ments. It has no memorial meaning of 
any sort. Such shapeless stones fit only for 
guide posts on country roads. There is 
only one road to better monuments, and 
that is through more artistic designs. The 
public will learn about them, and the dealer 
who does not show them will be left be- 
hind. 
LAST CHAPTER IN MAUSOLEUM PATENT CASE 
The last chapter in the famous Knight- 
Rieger mausoleum patent suit that has 
been in progress in Baltimore for several 
years was written February 3, when the 
United States Circuit Court of Appeals 
handed down a decision affirming the 
judgment of the lower court in invalidat- 
ing the alleged patent of Maurice L. 
Knight. 
The complete history of the suit, de- 
scriptions and illustrations of the mauso- 
leum and much of the evidence has already 
been given in these pages. 
The decision of the Court of Appeals, 
handed down by Judges Pritchard, Knapp 
and Woods, was as follows: 
The patent in suit, No. 979,963, was issued to 
appellant, complainant below, on December 27, 1910, 
for a mausoleum. In the specification on which 
his application was made he states that his inven- 
tion consists of (1) “improved means for obtaining 
ventilation and drainage of the crypts or loculi in 
a mausoleum or vault,” (2) “improved means for 
closing and sealing the crypts or loculi in a vault 
or mausoleum,” and (3) “other novel features of 
construction.” 
LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF MAUSOLEUM ON WHICH 
INFRINGEMENT WAS CLAIMED. 
VERTICAL SECTION OF MAUSOLEUM ON WHICH 
KNIGHT-RIEGER CASE WAS BASED. 
