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| St-Cunigunde Church, Montreal |
Geographic Coordinates:
45.48527062318233, -73.57697992574523
“This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window”. Mark Twain The New York Times, December 10, 1881.
Twain was speaking in and of my home town of Montreal at a reception held in his honour at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal on Thursday December 8, 1881.
During my bus commutes to work I would see many church tops and Twain's quote would come to mind. While walking as part of my regular commute I saw one of these churches up close. It is called St. Cunigunde Church. Across the street is Iberville Square with a fountain dedicated to Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville.
The lower part of the inscription reads: “The first statue was erected by the citizens of the city of Ste-Cunigunde on July 19, 1894.", yes there was such a city on the island of Montreal in the day. And it continued, "This second statue was raised by the city of Montreal on July 20, 1983."
Very dissimilar to the first two fountains that we visited, the
fountain to honour Chevalier Pierre Le Moyen d’Iberville, located
across from St-Cunigunde Church on the southwest corner St-Jacques
West and Vinet streets, is extremely simple in comparison to the
others. There are neither fire, nor lights, and this really says
something about the time it was constructed.
The four spigots are most likely being powered by four separate centrifugal pumps, with the appropriate amount of power to provide the desired rise of water. There are factors to be measured and formulas that fountain designers use to determine the size of the pumps they need.
The centre piece of granite bears inscriptions on each of its faces. Each spigot is set in line with the right angle of the centre piece, and spews a decent volume of water about a metre into the air. It seems to have no special timing mechanism. The jets are pretty simple, though they do create a very calming sound. However; for some individuals, depending on the volume of fluids they consume before visiting this fountain it may just create a Pavlovian reflex making them feel like urinating.
The fountain where it stands today was erected by the City of Montreal in 1983, and it seems to be constantly running.
One of the first patents for water fountain controls US Patent 4,111,363, was issued in the autumn of 1978 and called for the use of timing mechanisms and electromagnetically controlled valves. As we saw with both La Jute and the 29 jets at Victoria Square, the art of fountain design, construction and layout has progressed a great deal over the last four decades.
To see the fountain in action visit https://bit.ly/3JqzT0u and please subscribe to my YouTube channel like and leave your comments.
To see the episodes you have missed please check my playlist at: https://bit.ly/3oCZ32m .
Virtual Montreal Fountain Tours is released weekly, on Thursdays, with a short appearing on Mondays.
Closed Captioning is provided for those with hearing difficulty in English, and subtitles are available in both French and Ukrainian.
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