(These figures are by Albert Weinert.)

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Primitive Man and Primitive Woman, by Albert Weinert, are seen as finials around the court.  He is a simple hunter, or a man whose pastime consists in such amusement as feeding fish to the pelican.  She is a woman whose chief work is to rear children.

Leo Lentelli’s Aquatic Maids are grouped at the bases of the columns in front of the tower.  It was at first planned to have the fountains play to the tops of the columns on which sit the aquatic maids shooting their arrows into the waters, but a change in the plans left the aquatic maids high and dry, hence your wonderment at why they sit aloft.

(Leo Lentelli was born in Bologna, Italy, but now lives in New York).

The Italian cypresses, tall and slender, stand like sentinels in front of the arches.

Orange trees, ten feet in height, heavy with fruit, stand in opulence before the cypresses.

Balled acacias, with repeated regularity of shape, produce in this charming cloister a delightful formalism.

Solid beds of pink hyacinths add a glowing touch of color in this beauteous garden.

The creeping juniper is the border used.

The cistus is the border used around the other beds.  Under the trees are planted calceolarias, gebara, Shasta daisies, potentilla, columbine, and many other showy flowers.

The conventional standards at the south end of the cloister are aids in the illumination.

This court is most beautiful at night.

The tower, in white light, has the glowing candlesticks in striking evidence.

Great clouds of seeming incense rise constantly from the altars ranged around the court.  Fiery serpents belch fire into the basins below.  Beneath the world and around it rises the steam, which is marvelously illuminated.

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The North Court of the Ages

Eucalypti, acacias, English laurel and veronicas are banked close together in this court.  Great beds of orange eschscholtzia, the California poppy, make this court a veritable Field of the Cloth of Gold.

The creeping juniper is the border used.

Sherry Fry’s “Listening to the Sound of the Ages” stands in this court with her shell to her ear.  She listens to the stories that the sea has told the shell, and wonderful, very wonderful, is what she hears.

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Since the first issue of this book I have received in written form Mr. Mullgardt’s own wonderful interpretation, which I hereby append with his kind permission.  I shall not correct my work, for it will be interesting to compare the work of a layman with that of the initiated: 

San Francisco, April 19, 1915.

The Court of the Ages
A Sermon in Stone

“The Court of the Ages” is 340 feet square.  The surrounding walls are 75 feet high.  The Tower is 200 feet high.  The floor of the Court declines to the central Basin, affording the observer a full view of the surroundings.  The arcaded and vaulted Ambulatory extends continuously around the four sides.  The floor of this Ambulatory is elevated above the upper floor level of the Court for the convenience of observers.  Its architecture has not been accredited to any established style.