It is not remarkable, then, that the most ambitious effort of
monumental art upon the exposition grounds should have taken the shape
of a fountain. The erection is due to the energy and public spirit of
the Catholic Total Abstinence Union. The site chosen is at the extreme
western end of Machinery Hall. It looks along Fountain Avenue to the
Horticultural Building. Mated thus with that fine building, it becomes
a permanent feature of the Park. The central figure is Moses--not
the horned athlete we are apt to think of when we associate the
great lawgiver with marble, but staid and stately in full drapery. He
strikes the rock of Meribah, and water exudes from its crevices into
a marble basin. Outside the circular rim of this are equidistantly
arranged the rather incongruous effigies of Archbishop Carroll, his
relative the Signer, Commodore Barry and Father Mathew. Each of
these worthies presides over a small font designed for drinking
purposes--unless that of the old sea-dog be salt. The central basin
is additionally embellished with seven medallion heads of Catholics
prominent in the Revolution, the selections being La Fayette, his
wife, De Grasse, Pulaski, Colonel S. Moylan, Thomas Fitzsimmons and
Kosciusko. The artist is Hermann Kirn, a pupil of Steinhäuser, one of
the first of the modern romantic school of German sculptors. Kirn
is understood to have enjoyed his instructor's aid in completing the
statues in the Tyrol.

Another religious body ranges itself in the cause of art by the side
of one with which it does not habitually co-operate. Dr. Witherspoon,
the only clerical Signer, is its contribution in bronze. The Geneva
gown supplies the grand lines lacking in the secular costume of
the period, and indues the patriot with the silken cocoon of the
Calvinist. The good old divine had well-cut features, which take