SHELL FOUND IN BACKWATER.
SWAN FEEDING CYGNETS.
BULRUSHES NEAR PANGBOURNE.
QUAINT DESIGN ON OLD INN AT SONNING.
THE MAKING OF MAUSOLEUMS.
From the Special Article (81 pages) by Professor ALGERNON ASHTON.
Tomb-building.—... The architecture of mausoleums, tombs, cenotaphs, and other mortuary monuments has shown of late years a deterioration in regard to solidity of structure very painful to me in my cemeterial constitutionals from Kensal Green to Gravesend. Instead of the Cyclopean ponderosity of the Pre-Mycenæan epoch, one notices everywhere a flimsiness of material and meretriciousness of ornament most distressing to the serious observer. The trail of the jerry-builder is over all. I rejoice, however, to note signs of a return to a saner and more solid style of memorial architecture. Foremost in this movement are the enlightened and enterprising inventors of Bell’s Encyclopædic Tomb Blocks which in point of density of texture and specific gravity compare favourably with any other materials, whether of metal, brick, or stone. Once placed in position they cannot be removed even by the wildest of hydraulic rams or the most ferocious of cranes. I can conceive no more ideal resting-place for a wearied littérateur than a mausoleum constructed of these stupendous and impressive blocks. Where, indeed, could a man sleep more profoundly or tranquilly than when sepulchred in the very heart of the condensed extract of omniscience?...
[The new Volumes also contain Articles on the WOKING GOLF CLUB, WAGNER’S TRAUERMARSCH, SUTTEE, the ROYAL COLLEGE OF MUSIC, and CREMATION.]