Fig. 1. LANDSCAPE BY FATHER KIRCHER.
In the seventeenth century, Father Kircher conceived the idea of taking up Dinocrates' plan upon a small scale, and composed the landscape shown in Fig. 1. The drawing remained engraved for a long time upon a marble tablet set into the wall of Cardinal Montalte's garden at Rome. Later on, artists improved and varied this project, as shown in Figs. 2 and 3. By looking at these cuts from the sides of the page, it will be seen that they form human profiles. Fig. 2 represents an old woman, and Fig. 3 a man whose beard and hair are formed by shrubbery.
We do not think that these conceptions have ever been realized, although Heron in his treatise on Dioptra, and Father Scott in his Parastatic Magic, have described instruments that permit of making the necessary outlines to cause grounds to present a given aspect from a given point. These instruments consist essentially of a vertical transparent frame upon which is drawn a vertical projection of the landscape that it is desired to obtain.
In the island of Goa, near Bombay, there is a singular vegetable called "the sorrowful tree," because it only flourishes in the night. At sunset no flowers are to be seen, and yet after half an hour it is full of them. They yield a sweet smell, but the sun no sooner begins to shine upon them than some of them fall off, and others close up; and thus it continues flowering in the night during the whole year.