216 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
IMMENSE MONOLITH IN ROCKEFELLER FOUNTAIN 
ROLLING 50-TON STONE ON SHIPBOARD. ONE-PIECE FOUNTAIN BOWL 20-8 IN DIAMETER. 
The immense monumental fountain re- 
cently erected on the country estate of John 
D. Rockefeller at Tarrytown, N. Y., is in 
several respects the most remarkable job 
of monolithic granite quarrying, transpor- 
tation and construction in this country. 
The bowl of this fountain, in its finished 
state, is in one piece 20 feet 8 inches in 
diameter, 3 feet 3 inches thick, and weighs 
50 tons. The block from which this was 
cut as it came from the quarry was 22 feet 
by 22 feet by 5 feet 3 inches in dimensions 
and weighed 225 tons. The size of the 
stone precluded the possibility of railway 
transportation, so that the stone was quar- 
ried and cut at the quarries of John L. 
Goss, at Stonington, Me., loaded on a sail- 
ing vessel at the quarry’s edge and carried 
on this vessel on the Atlantic and up the 
Hudson river to Tarrytown. 
After the huge stone had been loosened 
from the quarry bed, it was moved on iron 
rollers to a specially built roadway, where 
it was rolled by means of a portable en- 
gine on spruce rollers 12 inches in diam- 
eter to a level spot about 600 feet away. 
The upper part of the bowl was then 
roughened out and a big hole 13 feet deep 
dug under one side of the stone in order 
to turn it over and finish the bottom of the 
bowl. The edge of the stone was heavily 
padded with felt and the hole filled with 
loose dunnage to cushion the stone as it 
came over. The upper edge of the stone 
was started with jacks, and then the tackle 
of a 60-ton derrick attached to this edge. 
The derrick gradually lifted this edge a 
little and the stone slid into the hole 
THE COMPLETED FOUNTAIN. 
Rockefeller Estate, Tarrytown, N. Y. 
at an angle of about 45 degrees. One 
of our pictures shows it in this position. It 
was then gradually jacked and pulled to a 
perpendicular, and tipped over a wall of 
railroad ties built up into the hole. Loose 
dunnage and saplings were piled on the 
other side, almost to the height of the 
stone, to cushion it as it came down bot- 
tom side up. The bottom was then fin- 
ished and the stone turned over again, 
for the finishing of the inside. 
The bowl was boxed with heavy lumber, 
bolted on, and the load placed on runners 
of hard pine, 22 feet long and 14 inches 
sciuare and taken on rollers down to the 
wharf, 680 feet away. The stone was 
placed so that it projected over the edge 
of the wharf, while the deck of the vessel 
was several feet below it at low tide. As 
the rising tide brought the vessel up, the 
stone was quickly rolled on and was ready 
for its voyage. One of our pictures shows 
it just as it landed on the ship. 
The bowl in the completed work rests 
on a pedestal 3 feet 6 inches in diameter 
and 8 feet high, and the total height of 
the fountain is 32 feet. The work is an 
exact copy of the Fountain of the Ocean 
in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The 
seated figures represent the rivers Nile, 
Euphrates and Ganges, and the surmount- 
ing figure represents Oceanus, the God of 
the Oceans. The sculptures are executed 
in marble. The original in Florence was 
the work of Giovanni di Bologna, and was 
made in 1576. Every detail of the original 
has been closely copied. 
THE 225-TON BLOCK COMING OUT OF QUARRY. 
TURNING THE BIG BOWL OVER TO FINISH BOTTOM. 
