Another unique feature is the rockery, on which half of the charm of Chinese gardens usually depends. Nowhere in the world is there such a crazy for artificial hills. It is true that in the Western garden one often finds rocks and grottos, and in the Japanese garden, rock-hills and sometimes “suti-ishi” which means random stones. But in all these cases the stone suffers no hydraulic transformation. Even in the Ryoan-ji Garden, Kyoto, where fifteen pieces of rock symbolizing tigers and cubs are to be seen, the stones look no less natural than those in the mountains. Chinese rockery, on the other hand, is in most cases composed of that kind of limestone which drives its fantastic shape through the action of water. Lake rock, as it is usually called (confined to T’ai Hu Lake alone), is quarried from the bottom of lakes where after centuries of washing and scouring it becomes porous, spare, and grotesque. Stones in other regions are also employed. One seldom enters a Chinese garden without seeing rockery, either in the form of peaks, embankments, hills or grottos. Sometimes the rock-hill dominates the entire garden.

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