Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1915-09-24

little individuality to start with the adventures
and patchings of time have endued it with
picturesqueness of it's own The builders gave
1t practically no decoration, but such solid works
receive all they need from the hand OF time.
which adds detail with unerring taste. The
palmer edifice may have been to start with,
the better time adorns it, provided it has been
built with sound materials good workmanship
and in good proportions Most of Englands noblest
castles must have looked gaunt and even Ito
contemporary eyes) ugly. To the Saxon citizens
Of London the White doubtless whitewashed)
tower can hardly have conveyed esthetic pleas
ure But time has even decorated Norman cas-
ties, SO that not the baldest modern skyscraper
need despair of future admiration if it can hold
itself end up long enough
Amersfoort tower is anything rather than plain.
On the contrary it is in the Gothic style tending
towards famboyant while it's general design is
of the type of the tower at Utrecht, which, indeed
being only fourteen miles away doubtless sug-
gested it. That was built during the middle half
of the fourteenth century; Amersfoort at the
very end of the fifteenth. Both have the open
octagonal top story already described Utrecht is
1913 feet high, Amersfoort 312 feet. The latter is
considered to be the finest Gothic tower in Hol-
land. / suppose it to have been surnounted or
intended to be surmounted by plain spire, but
the present dubious top and open-work crown
were put on in 1866. Where did Holland get its
taste for these bulbs? She did not have mo-
nopoly of them, for they numerous enough in
Germany and even in Switzerland An oriental
original probably suggested them. The Amers-
foort church built in the fourteenth century,
and the tower may well have been projected from
the first. An explosion damaged the building, but
the damage was made good and the tower for
tunately escaped
Few tourists stop at Amersfoort, but plenty OF
them can see the tower from the train on their
way eastward from Amsterdam. The summit of
it looks northward far away over the Zuyder Zee,
and In every other direction over a country as
hat as water There was some fun in building
high towers in Holland, they could be seen from
SO far away. Amersfoort can bail Utrecht any
clear day, and both of them Rhenen Il imagine).
which Rembrandt sketched.
Anyone who has landed at Flushing, and pro-
ceeded thence anywhither by train, has been
carried for the first few miles over the am
phibious region of the island of Walcheren. He
has passed Middelburg and presently, if he looked
away off to the left, he will have seen, at dis
lance of two or three miles. the little town of
We're. Both are old towns and highly pictur-
esque So indeed Durer recorded them to be
when he visited them in the cold December of
1920 "Middelburg" he said, SIS good town,
fine place for sketching. It has beautiful town
hall with fine tower. There is much art shown
in all things here" All he has to say about We're
is that 1T is fine little town where lie ships
from all lands" The object Of Durer's unfor-
tunate winter journey to the islands of iceland
was not, however, to see towers and town halls
but to satisfy his Unsuitable curiosity about
natural history. He wanted to make a drawing
of a whale that had been stranded in those
parts. Such curiosity in the case Of men like
Durer and Leonardo is the first indication we
possess of the approach OF the age of science
The whale had been washed away before Durer's