PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS (pp. 11-12)

PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS

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INTERIOR OF MANUFACTURES BUILDING.—Very like a great city by itself was the interior of the Manufactures Building, with its forty-four acres of exhibiting space — space which was not enough, great as it was for what the world demanded, with its broad avenues, its scores and scores of galleries, its wonderful exhibits and its teeming population. Never under one roof before was collected such an enormous display of what human industry and ingenuity can produce; never was made such an exhibition of what has been accomplished in productive art. The mammoth proportions of the building on the outside impressed all beholders but hardly prepared them for the effect upon them when within. It was many things in one; a magnificent showing of the beautiful and useful, a city doing business, a promenade for hundreds of thousands, a great entity which seemed almost as if separate from the remainder of the Exposition. The view given is from the height of the gallery and down Columbia avenue, the great thoroughfare, fifty feet in width, extending through the building north and south, being so designated. An avenue of equal width crossed the center of the structure from east to west. In the foreground may be seen displays from Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Great Britain, France and Belgium. In the distance just in the center of the building may be seen the great clock, so that the view is really one of half the extent of Columbia avenue, and the general effect of the great central arch of the building the throngs are lacking, this admirable view being taken in the early morning.

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GRAND ARCH OF THE PERISTYLE.—In the memory of millions of people the grand colonnade or Peristyle, which reared itself between the great eastern basin and Lake Michigan, will remain as the most beautiful inanimate object upon which their eyes ever rested. The Peristyle was in the purest Phidian style, was five hundred feet in length and fifty feet in height, connecting the Casino and Music Hall. The Corinthian columns represented the different States and Territories. Along the top of the Peristyle appeared eighty-five allegorical figures all in heroic proportions. At the center the colonnade was broken by a vast triumphal arch supporting the famous group known as the Columbus Quadriga. Here the Discoverer was represented in a chariot drawn by four horses led by women, with heralds riding beside them. Columbus leaned on a jeweled sword, his head was thrown back, and the expression on his face was that of a man who had conquered all obstacles at last. The figure was fourteen feet in height. The whole group was full of life and vigor. Well executed groups on the pedestals of the arch represented the genius of Navigation. The feature was but one of many of the glorious Peristyle, one of the artistic triumphs of the Fair. Its cost was two hundred thousand dollars. On the evening of January 8, 1894, the Casino, Music Hall and the entire Peristyle were totally destroyed by fire. Of the host who witnessed the scene hundreds were in tears at the destruction of a thing so majestic and beautiful.

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