MOVING A MOUNTAIN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143674, 19 December 1911, Page 7

MOVING A MOUNTAIN.

A MILLIONAIRE'S NOVEL HOBBY. The old text about faith being able to move mountains will have to bo revived in tho light of recent happening*, and the word money may well be substituted. And the man wno has achieved this seeming impossibility is Jamies 6. Duke, a multi-millionaire tobacco man, and owner of a great estate at Somerville, New Jersey. What follows reads more like a fairy tale than a record of actual fact, and certainly no place less adapted to tho carrying out of such plans could have been selected by Mr. Duke than Somerville, .New Jersey. The country is as flat as a plate, and even the soil on his estate "was found to bo only shale and clay. But the man who created the Tobacco Trust, who in twenty years, built up a fortune of £10,000,000 from the little nucleus of £IOO,OOO wanted a task, a problem that would tax his imagination, and, incidentally give an outlet to the millions that monopoly and smokers were pouring into his coffers. Not many miles away there arc the Jersey uplands, where hills mountains. *" screams and lorests can bo had in abundance. But Mr. Duke wanted them in Somerville, and what ho wants ho has been accustomed to get, bucked by tho power of grout wealth, so an army of men was set to work to create a mountain. To those who may have visions of the Andes, the Rockies or the Himalayas this word ‘'mountain” may appear an exaggeration, because Duke's mountain is only 150 feet high. But to Somerville it ifc a real mountain—a wonder, a thing for local pride. Twice a week the populace marches oat to view the progress of the work, and every man, woman and child in the. village can tell tho inquisitive stranger how many million cubic feet of earth, how many millions of trees and shrubs have been carted and hauled long distances to make this park. With the ran id growth of this gigantic fortune James B. Duke conceived tho idea of owning an artistic country place equal to the finest in the world. His idea of this was a landscape full of hills, lakes, waterfalls, rolling ground*, trees, shrubs fountains, ami winding drives. Ho ordered landscape architects to draw up plans embodying his visions, and then this most extraordinary attempt to build scenery began. .... Duke’s Park ,as ho likes to call his estate, is to be tho finest of Us kind, and cost is no consideration, "he plan grow out of the original idea to create a mountain. As the work progressed and the first plans were carried out, now ideas were conceived by Mr. Duke, and as lie went on the park took a grip on him. Ho became an enthusiastic landscape architect, and many of the features were entirely designed by him. The- white marble palace on top of •the “mountain” will bo tho centre or tho nark. A watch tower 150 feet high will give a view of the surrounding country for many miles. The foundations of the -palace are forty-five feet deep, and a tunnel enters the basement from the foot of the hill providing an entrance for servants and delivery carts. A swimming pool 120 feet long will bo constructed at one end of the basement. Onlv the steel foundation of the palace is ready yet, but the walls of the structure are beginning to rise above the “mountain, •’ and marble stairs down to the next terrace have boon laid out.' Mr. Duke expects to have his new house ready within two years. , . . Thirty-two miles of drives have already been laid out and made into the finest macadam roads. Millions of trees and shrubs wore planted; whole forests brought bodily into the pjain or Somerville. In one summer 500,000 rhododendrons have been planted, and huge greenhouses take care during the winter of the exotic plants which produce brilliant colour effects during the warm months. A dozen or more lakes and groups of uonds have been created to add to the - picturesqueness of the park. The lakes arc on successive levels, connected by waterfalls and cascades. When Mr. ‘Duke was ready to fill with water the big holes dug for these lakes, and it became known that it would require more than twenty million gallons of water a day to keep his lakes full and his fountains snouting; the residents along tho Raritan River began to protest, in fear that their water supply would he cut off to please the fancy of a millionaire. The fears wore allayed by the promise that only one big drain would be made, and that here- ' after the water would bo kept in circulation by being, pumped again into the lakes after its descent back to tho pumping station. However, much of tho water is lost in the cvcle, and from two to three million gallons has to be taken daily from the Raritan River. The work, which will cost at least £3,000,000, is being pressed towards its completion as rapidly as Mr. Duke’s frequent and unexpected changes will allow. A force of nearly four hundred men will be kept busy constantly to keep tho park in proper shape after it is completed. The most conservative estimates obtainable put tbe cost of keeping the finished scheme at £60,000 a year, and neighbours are already speculating what will happen to the" nark after Air. Duko ceases to bo its master.