News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1891-08-13
TERMS SI.5O.

been collected from many sour
ces 1t is located under some spruce
trees in front of the home, and the
boys in blue" take much pride and
pleasure in exhibiting it to visitors.
Two baby foxes and two baby coons
are the main attraction just now.
They are very cute and allow them
selves to be fondled by any one. In
another cage is a bald eagle from
FLORIDA, and near by is q sparrow
hawk which has many friends. Then
come some gray squirrels, rabbits,
white rats and n deer. The cats,
dogs and wild birds are uncaged. In
| the basin of a small fountain close by
are number of such fine large trout
that one can almost imagine he sees
the ghost of old Izaak Walton with
tishing-rod in his shadowy hand com
ing to capture the finney beauties.
FINALLY, four mischievous tame crows
ute9ntned by prison bars, cav seold-
lngly a6 the stranger, though they
are nightly attracted by a blue uni
form, and at the sight of morsel of
food the birds will frequently alight
on a veteran and fight for the crumb.
This constitutes the collection of
"wild beasts and rare birds" of the
soldiers home, and ifthe visitor thinks
1T Is not quite so meritorious as Fore
paugh's it is just as well not TO men
ton the fact to any of the old sol
diers, who would Immediately refute
any such insinuation.
An rrrrr- r,pr-N-r,,,.-
An interesting feature in the land
scape is the great fountain which
plays between the grove and the
home. 1t is believed that it throws
the highest or at least the second
highest jet of any in the world. IN
der favorable conditions-full head of
water and a still air-the stream ris-
es to the height of 1913 feet. This
great toy was built mainly for the
amusement of the late Seth B. Hunt,
a wealthy New York gentleman, who
passed his summers in Bennington. |
He was a native of Bennington, how
ever, having been born in the build |
ing now used as a part of the home. |
Mr.. Hunt who was a gentleman of |
the old school, having figure which
gave him an air of dignity and al
most patrician distinction, loved 10
sit on the broad yeranda of his home |
on sunny summer days filed with de- !
light at the unparrelled life, light and |
transparency of the flying waters or
at the stupendous resources they |
possessed in the way of color, form |
and sound. The white, kissing col |
umn, mounting into cloudland and
then falling back in broken tumbling
masses into the great basin below;
the pillows of mist, atomized by the
force of the rising stream, with swal- |
lows on tireless wings sporting in the
spray; the tri pie rainbows hung out |
in splendid confusion of purple and
green and gold and the hundreds of
fantastic formations, ever changing,
like the creations of the Kaleidoscope,
were to Mr.. Hunt a never-ending
source of pleasure. In fact, it was TO
Mr.. Hunt what a fast horse or a
yacht Is to some men Whom tho
I great waterspOut is in full play one
is not only forcibly reminded ofSouth-
ey's Cataract ofLodore," but ofthe
pictured representation OF the great
! geyser of Iceland.
ALONG PIPE.
The distance from the fountain
head at Battles brook to the soldiers
home is 6,600 feet and the fall is 400
feet. The pipe which passes the water
has an inside diameter of six inches
and is laid in an almost straight |
line. The pipe has three Ludlow |
gates of the same diameter as the |
pipe. One of the gates is at the head |
in the reservoir at Battles brook; one |
across the pipe, eight feet outside of
the fountain reservoir at the home,
and one two feet inside of the out
side diameter of the reservoir at the
home. The last is to discharge all |
sediment or impurity that may ac-
cumulate from time to time in the
pipe. The one across the pipe is to
let the water on to the adjutages in
the fountain reservoir, and the one
at the head of the pipe is for letting
in or shutting the water from the
pipe. The reservoir at the home is
100 feet in diameter, four and one
half feet deep and has a capacity of
80 1913 cube feet. The stream-solid
jet-rises highest through a three
fourths-inch adjutage. There are six
adiutages, but the main difference
consists in size, not form. One, how
ever, is made up of twelve orifices
and another has the sheaf form. The
cost of the fountain was 100000.
ABOUT BATTLES BROOK.
Battles brook at the fountain head
flows in the driest time about forty
cubic feet of water in a minute. The
stream rises in ''iron spring." which
trickles from the shattered Silurian
rocks far up on the west side of Bald
mountain at a point nearly $500
above the level of the sea. The tiny
rivulet, in the tortuous course of its
rocky bed down the mountain, is
swollen into respectable
size by tributary springs. The brook
was named after Benjamin Battles,
an eccentric hermit, who built n log
cabin close to the stream many years
ago.-Troy Times.