Rocky Ford enterprise., 1915-09-24

little individuality to with, the adventures
and patchings OF time have endued it with
pfcturesqueness of its The builders gave
1t practically decoration. hut such solid works
receive all they need from the hand OF time,
which adds detail with unerring taste. The
palmer an edifice may have been to start with.
the better time adorns II, provided II has been
built with sound materials. good workmanship
and in good proportions. Most of Englands noblest
castles must have looked gaunt and ito
contemporary eyes) ugly. To the Saxon citizens
of London the White doubtless whtewashed)
tower can hardly have conveyed esthetic pleas
But time has decorated Norman
ties, so that not the baldest modern sky.scraper
need despair of future admiration II 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 its general design Is
of the type of the tower at Utrecht, which, indeed,
being only fourteen miles away. doubtless sug-
gested IT. That 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
33S feet high. Amersfoort 3i2 feet The latter is
considered to be the finest Gothic tower in Hol-
land I suppose it to have been surmounted
intended to be surmounted by plain spire. but
the present bulbous top and open-work crown
put in 1855 Where did Holland get its
taste for these bulbs? She did not have a mo-
nopoly of them. for they numerous enough In
Germany and even in Switzerland. An oriental
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 made good and the tower for
tunately escaped.
Few tourists stop at Amersfoort but plenty OF
them the tower from the train on their
way eastward from Amsterdam. The summit Of
Il looks northward far away the 'Zuyder Zee,
and in every other direction a country as
fiat water. There 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) J.
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 a dis
tance of two three miles. the little town of
Veere. Both old towns and highly pictur-
esque. So indeed Durer recorded them 10 be
when he visited them in the cold December of
1920. "Mddelburg." he said, lis good town. a
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 Veere
is that ut is a fine little town where lie ships
from all lands" The object of Durers 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 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