undred and twenty-two
acres, and are so arranged as to make a beautiful view out of every
window of the palace. All things are provided that can add to rural
beauty--fountains, cascades, running streams, lakes, rockeries,
orange-groves, hothouses, woods, sylvan dells--and no labor or expense
is spared to enhance the attractions of trees, flowers, and shrubbery.
From a stone temple, which it completely covers, the great cascade flows
down among dolphins, sea-lions, and nymphs, until it disappears among
the rocks and seeks an underground outlet into the Derwent. Enormous
stones weighing several tons are nicely balanced, so as to rock at the
touch or swing open for gates. Others overhang the paths as if a gust of
wind might blow them down. In honor of the visit of the Czar Nicholas in
1844 the great "Emperor Fountain" was constructed, which throws a column
of water to an immense height. The grounds are filled with trees planted
by kings, queens, and great people on their visits to the palace. The
finest of all the trees is a noble Spanish chestnut of sixteen feet
girth. Weeping willows do not grow at Chatsworth, but they have provided
one in the form of a metal tree, contrived so as to discharge a deluge
of raindrops from its metallic leaves and boughs when a secret spring
is touched. The glory of the Chatsworth gardens, however, is the
conservatory, a beautiful structure of glass and iron covering nearly an
acre, the arched roof in the centre rising to a height of sixty-seven
feet. In this famous hot-house are the rarest palms and tropical plants.
It was designed by Joseph Paxton, the duke's head-gardener, and,
enlarging the design, Paxton constructed in the same way the London
Crystal Palace for the Exhibition of 1851, for which service he was
knighted. Besides this rare collection of hot-house plants, the famous
Victoria Regia is in a special house at Chatsworth, growing in a tank
thirty-four feet in diameter, the water being maintained at the proper
temperature and kept constantly in motion as a running stream. The seed
for this celebrated plant was brought from Guiana, and it first bloomed
here in 1849. Some fifty persons are employed in the gardens and
grounds, besides the servants in the buildings, showing the retinue
necessary to maintain this great show-palace, for that is its chief
present use, the Duke of Devonshire seldom using it as a residence, as
he prefers the less pretentious but more comfortable seat he pos