532
Fountains and Jets d’eau.
[Book V.
shuts the lower one. The lower end of R .is furnished with a cock* andthat of A with a valve opening outwards, for the purpose of charging thesiphon through an opening at B. When in Operation, the water afterrunning a little while acquires sufficient raomentum to shut the lower valve,upon which a portion rushes into the air-vessel and escapes in a jet; thespring then closes the upper valve, and the fluid descends through R tilithe lower valve is again closed and another jet produced.
CHAPTER VII.
Fountains: Variety of their forms, Ornaments and accompaniments—Landscape gardeners—Curiousfountains from Decaus—Fountains in old Rome—Water issuing from statues—Fountains in Pompeii— Automaton trumpeter—Fountains by John of Bologna and M. Angelo—Old fountains in Nuremberg ,Augsburg and Brussels—Shakespeare, Drayton and Spencer quoted—Fountains of Aleinous—Theyounger Pliuy’s account of fountains in the gardens of his Tuscan villa—Eating in gardens—Alludedto in Solomon’s Song—Cato the Censor—Singular fountains in Italy —Fountains deseribed by MarcoPaulo and other old writers—Predilection for artificial trees m fountains—Perfumed and rausical foun-tains—Fountains within public and private buildings—Enormous cost of perfumed waters at Romaufeasts—Lucan quoted—Introduction of fountains into modern theatres and churches recommended—Fountains in the apartments of Eastern princes—Water conveyed through pipes by the ancients intoficlds for the use of their cattle—Three and four-way cocks.
Artificial fountains and jets d’eau are of extreme antiquity : althoughthey were not (like natural ones) objects of worship among the ancients,they were at least held in great estimation, and unusual care was oftentaken in designing and decorating them. Indeed no other hydraulicdeviceshave ever been so greatly and so variously enriched with Ornament.The pipes of supply were concealed in columns, &c. and their orificeswrought into nnmerous emblematic figures, (see page 119,) while thebasins that received the fluid were generally of polished marble. Some-times the pipes terminated in statues of men, women, children, animals,birds, fishes, vases, gods, goddesses, &c. From them the fluid spoutedhigh in the air, or was discharged directly into receivers, or broken in itsdescent by intervening objects : oftentimes it was made to flow over therim of a vase, to issue from others that seemed to have been accidentallyoverturned, and not infrequently the figure of a female poured it from apitcher.
From the facility of applying water as a motive agent another featurewas added. Various automata were put in motion by mechanism con-cealed in the base or pedestal from which the fluid issued—figures ofmen blew trumpets and played on Organs, and automaton birds warbledforth notes on adjacent trees. (Such devices are deseribed by Heron.)All the senses were often gratified at these fountains; the sultry atmo-sphere was cooled and rendered grateful to the feeling—the sparklingliquid quenched the thirst—sight was gratified in contemplating the designand execution of the whole, and noticing the ever-changing forms assumedby the moving fluid—the pleasure derived from the sound of falling waterhas ever been noticed by poets—and not to forget the sense of smelling,in those fountains that were designed only to moderate the temperature ofthe air, the water was often perfumed.