The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1898-09-21

preted differently to different ears. The
park benches in its vicinity are never
empty. The people, young and old, men
and women, some with babies in their
arms, some drowsy with sleep, like to
watch it, and staid citizens, who COM
monty would never dream of stopplns
In Madison Square, are decoyed into
doing SO by the insistent magic of the
falling waters.
To the uniniiated it would seem that
the fountain was using UP much
larger quantity of water than is actu-
ally the case, such variety of action
and effect is secured, but 30 per cent.
of the water shot into the air is picked
up by the jets at the time of their
submersion in the pool, and the same
water is used over and over again,
only aerated and atomiZed, and con-
tinually changed and freshened oy its
evolutions, until it becomes as reviVi-
fed and livened as the water Of a
running stream.
THE fountain in Madison Square is
in reality a phenomenon, none-such,
said one of the park officials. The
evolving of such novel and satisfactory
effects, with an apparatus so simple
that child could operate it, and Civ
ing the impression of such abundance
of water, is something ahead of what
any fountain maker has comprised
heretofore. Economy is one of it's chief
merits. Men versed in the ethics of
fluids, air forces, and all that say out
right that this fountain is a mystery
to them. They see that it works, and
works marvelously, but they do not
understand why; and moreover, when
the inventor, or rather the adapter, Of
the principle that is the handspring Of
the apparatus, first essayed to get
patent for it, the men in the Patent
Office, whose business it is to know
about such things, hooted at his idea,
and refused to grant him a patent,
saying it was impracticable. To over
rule this, the inventor went to Wash
ington and took his apparatus with
him. AS the authorities refused to
credit the workings of his theory, he
demonstrated the operation practically,
right there before their eyes, setting up
his tubes in the little common sink in
the Patent Office room. They saw then
the working of the principle that they
had derided and, little later, granted
the patent.
beautiful and unique that New York
has ever had. Except in the old, old
countries, where fountains have .ong
been considered important matters, and
are often the source of water supply
for village or town, the people filing
their water jugs and pitchers there,
and lingering to gossip in primitive
old world fashion except with this
hQ of
them the world over have too much
architecture and too little water They
are not practicable. Some of them
here in New York are simply ridicu-
lous; but the Madison Square fountain
has intrinsic merit. 1t is, first of all, a
fountain suggesting a cataract or
cascade or watersDout, just as you
may please to call it. If has life and
activity, and is a distinct attraction in
the landscape, even when you are too
far away to hear it's splashing. Just
compare it and the pleasure it gives,
for instance, with the elaborate fount-
ain in the City Hall Park, that cost
way up in the thousands, or with the
travesty at Sixty-sixth street and the
boulevard which has the merest mod
icum of water dribbling over the face
ness see that expensive drinking fount-
tain that has been boxed up in Union
Square for an age, simply because its
elaborateness involves it's getting out
of order, and the cost of keeping ex-
ceedS the benefit
Compared with these the new foun-
tain is as simple as A B C; nothing to
get out of order, and nothing to hinder
itc nrlyi
the Croton or a baby eel should get
into the pipes. The apparatus that
works it can be placed in any old foun-
tain-basin, providing that the water
pressure be at least one pound to every
foot Of the diameter of the basin If
a fountain of the sort could be put in
every east-side park, it would give the
people of those dense districts more
pleasure, in proportion to the outlay,
than anything else that the city could
contrive. Those people, packed in the
tenement houses, who never get a
glimpse of the water, because they can
not afford the carfare. or the time that
it would take, experience genuine COM
fort in a fountain that moves and leaps
and has life and a rejuvenating sound
Go there by the Madison Square foun-
tain any time and hear the admiring
comments it excites, and you'll under
stand what / mean"
An interesting fact about the new
fountain is that the man who invented
it, native of New York State by the
way, did not set out to make a fountain
at all, and only hammered away on va
rious experiments in the vibration of
fluids, for his own satisfaction A
practical worker in hydraulics and fluid
motives, he hit upon law or a princi- |