Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1915-10-01

little individuality to start with, the adventures
and patchings of time have endued 1t with
picturesqueness of its 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 an edifce may have been to start with,
the better time adorns 1t, provided 1t 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 hardly have conveyed esthetic pleas
ure. But time has even decorated Norman cas-
ties, that not the baldest modern sky-scraper
need despair of future admiration II 1t can hold
itself end up long enough.
Amersfoort tower is anything rather than plain.
On the contrary, 1t is in the Gothic style tending
towards aamboyant, while its general design is
of the type of the tower at Utrecht, which, indeed,
being only fourteen miles away, doubtless sug-
gested 1t. 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
1898 feet high, Amersfoort 312 feet The latter is
considered to be the finest Gothic tower In Ho
land. l suppose 1t to have been surmounted or
intended to be surmounted by a plain spire, but
the present dubious top and open-work crown
put on in 1855. Where did Holland get its
taste for these bulbs? She did not have mo-
nopoly Of them, for they are numerous enough in
Germany and even in Switzerland. An oriental
original probably suggested them The Amers-
foort church was 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
1t looks northward far away over the Zuyder Zee,
and in every other direction over a country as
nat as water. There some fun In building
high towers In Holland they could be seen from
so far away Amersfoort can hail Utrecht on 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. IL he looked
away off to the left he will have seen, at dis
lance of two 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. rs good town,
fine place for sketching 1t has a 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 ut is fine little town where lie ships
from all lands" The object of Durer's unfor-
tunate winter journey to the islands of iceland
not, however, to towers and town halls
but to satisfy his Unsuitable curiosity about
natural history. He wanted to make drawing
of 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