on in the words
of Sidney Lanier, the Georgia poet. President Grant, in a short speech,
then declared the International Exhibition open. A procession of
dignitaries moved to Machinery Hall, where the President of the United
States and Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, set in motion the great
Corliss engine, and with the whirr of spindle and clatter of machinery
the world's seventh great fair began.

Weeks and months of inspection were necessary to grasp the Exhibition as
a whole and in detail, but an imaginary stroll through the grounds will
give the reader some general idea of it.

Entering through one of the 106 gates, the sight-seer naturally turned
his eye first toward the colossal Main Building. A parallelogram in
form, 1,880 feet long by 460 wide, and 70 high, it covered twenty acres.
At the centre and ends were projecting wings, large buildings in
themselves. In the middle and at the four corners rose towers. In spite
of its size the building seemed light and almost graceful. Its brick
sub-structure, seven feet high, stood upon massive masonry foundations.
The rest of the building was mainly glass and iron. The iron trusses of
the roof rested upon 672 slender iron pillars. This hall had been
erected in a year, at a cost of $1,700,000.

In the Main Building manufactures were exhibited, also products of the
mine, along with various other evidences of the condition of science and
education. The broad aisles ran the whole length of the interior,
flanked on either side by exhibits. More than one-third of the space
was reserved for the United States, the rest being divided in varying
proportions among foreign countries. The products of all climates,
tribes, and times were here crowded together under one roof. The mighty
states of Great Britain, France, and Germany exhibited the work of their
myriad roaring looms side by side with the wares of the Hawaiian Islands
and the little Orange Free State. Here were the furs of Russia with
other articles from the frozen North; there the flashing diamonds of
Brazil and the rich shawls and waving plumes of India. At a step one
passed from old Egypt to the latest-born South American republic.
Chinese conservatism and Yankee enterprise confronted each other across
the aisle. All civilized nations but Greece were represented--more than
ever before took part in an international fair.

From the novelty of the foreign display the American visitor returned
proudly to the display made