PARK AND CC/nCTERY. 
349 
RECEIVING VAULT, PROSPECT HILL CEMETERY, OMAHA, NEB. 
the centre of the cemetery, and 
is constructed of iron and fire- 
proof tiling, in dimensions twenty 
by thirty feet. In design it is of 
the Grecian order and has a capa- 
city of fifty bodies. Three stain- 
ed glass memorial windows, pro- 
tected by iron gratings on the out- 
side, are a feature of the inside 
decoration and are placed over 
the beautiful altar at the opposite 
end of the corridor from the main 
entrance. The ventilation is effect- 
ed by six large ventilators about 
the base and five in the roof. 
The Receiving Vault may al- 
so be used as a chapel for the 
holding of funeral services by the 
lot owners, provided such 
service does not interfere 
with the purpose for which it was intended. This 
structure is the property of the permanent fund of 
the Association, and all revenue from it will be 
added to the principal of that fund. 
Prospect Hill Cemetery is the oldest cemetery 
of Omaha, and is situated about two miles from 
its business centre on a commanding elavation over- 
looking the city. It dates from 1858. Many of 
the early pioneers, those who laid the foundation 
of Omaha’s growth and prosperity, sleep their last 
sleep here. It is not however laid out or governed 
on the modern ideas of cemetery management, ow- 
ing to its early establishment and other conditions; 
but the Trustees are in full sympathy with such 
ideas and as far as practicable in their judgment 
apply the modern methods to the practical working 
of Prospect Hill Cemetery. 
Story of the Garden. 
The story is an old one. Bacon reminds us 
that "God Almightie first planted a garden”; and, 
if it was the duty of our first parents "to dress that 
garden and to keep it,’’ so, assuredly, has the love 
of gardening, of flowers and of herbs occupied a 
place in the hearts of men, as in their minds, from 
the beginning of the world. No class has escaped, 
and the spell has fallen at one time and another up- 
on the kings and prophets, philosophers and poets, 
upon men of every calling, creed and occupation, 
while the sympathies of men of science and learning 
have been frequently enlisted side by side with 
those of laborers and artisans. To go back to the 
bible story is to find this love of the garden in 
Deuteronomy as in Genesis, in the writings of 
Solomon as in the words of Isaiah: it makes itself 
evident in the words of Euripides, of Aristotle, of 
Theophrastus, of the Quintilian, and it comes out 
again and again in the verse of Virgil and in many 
a glowing passage of Pliny. 
In the best days of the Roman empire — and the 
garden of the Roman villa must have possessed 
many peculiar charms long before gardening was 
thought of in these islands — the science of horticul- 
ture was already widely practiced; the love of 
flowers was common to men; and, were we able now 
to look into the gardens of the villas of those days, 
we should see terraces and statues and glistening 
marble fountains, gorgeous yet familiar flowers, 
and tangled masses of creepers and beautifully kept 
paths leading out of the bright sun, where lilies 
grew tall and the palms waved, into the deep shade 
of the ilex, the laurel and the olive. Pliny’s gar- 
den may have been of this character, and also Vir- 
gil’s at Naples, or at his country house at Nola, for 
he loved to have flowers about him. Horace was a 
townsman first, but he, too, delighted in his re- 
treats in the valley of Ustica and at Tibur, and Ovid 
carried the love of the beautiful with him into his 
exile. 
It is the same all through; and, whether we read 
of the gardens of Aleinous or of the Hesperides, of 
those of Maecenas or of the rose gardens of Midas, 
we hear always of their charms and their fascina- 
tions; while, if we require an instance of the spell 
which the practice of the art of gardening has ever 
exercised, we shall find one in that familiar story 
ofthe smile of pity on the countenanceof Diocletian, 
when he looked up from the cabbages he had plant- 
ed with his own hand, and remarked that he was 
no longer to be tempted to resume the purple, now 
that he had once tasted real happiness. — Quarterly 
Review. 
