button to main menu  Observations on Picturesque Beauty, page 111

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vol.1 p.111
These two kinds of cascades, the broken, and the regular, may be combined. If the weight of water be small, it is true, it will admit only of the broken fall; but if it be large, it may with propriety admit a combination of both: and these combinations may be multiplied into each other with endless variety.
The regular fall admits also another mode of variety by forming itself into what may be called the successive fall; in which the water, instead of making one continued shoot, falls through a succession of different stories. Of this kind are many of the mountain-cascades in this country, which are often very beautiful; especially where the stages are deranged; and the water seeks it's way from one stage to another.
This is the species of cascade, which was the great object of imitation in all the antiquated water-works of the last age. Our forefathers admired the successive fall; and, agreeably to their awkward mode of imitation, made the water descend a regular flight of stone-stairs.
  waterfall, proportions
Before we conclude the subject of cascades, it may be observed, that, as in other objects of beauty, so in this, proportion must be a
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