in black marble. Among all the Groves in
the Park at Versailles the Labyrinth is the
most to be recommended, as well for the
novelty of the design as the number and
diversity of the fountains that with
ingenuity and _naïveté_ express the philosophies, of
the sage Aesop. The animals of colored
bronze are so modeled that they seem truly
to be in action. And the streams of water
that come from their mouths may be
imagined as bearing the words of the fable they
represent. There are a great number of
fountains, forty in all, each different in
subject, and of a style of decoration that blends
with the surrounding verdure. At the
entrance to the Maze is a bronze statue of
Aesop himself--the famous Mythologist of Phrygia."

[Illustration: The Fountain of Versailles]

To appreciate the engineering skill of the
directors of fountain construction at
Versailles it must be remembered that it was
from an arid plateau that hundreds of
streams were made to spring from the earth.
Thousands of laborers were employed to lay
beneath the surface of the ground a net-work
of canals and aqueducts to receive the tribute
of water-courses directed hither from distant
sources. The waters were finally pumped