veland laid his finger on the key. A
tumult of applause mingled with the jubilant melody of Handel's
"Hallelujah Chorus." Myriad wheels revolved, waters gushed and sparkled,
bells pealed and artillery thundered, while flags and gonfalons
fluttered forth.

The Exposition formed a huge quadrilateral upon the westerly shore of
Lake Michigan, from whose waters one passed by the North Inlet into the
North Pond, or by the South Inlet into the South Pond. These united with
the central Grand Basin in the peerless Court of Honor. The grounds and
buildings were of surpassing magnitude and splendor. Interesting but
simple features were the village of States, the Nations' tabernacles,
lying almost under the guns of the facsimile battleship Illinois, and
the pigmy caravels, Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, named and modelled
after those that bore Columbus to the New World. These, like their
originals, had fared from Spain across the Atlantic, and then had come
by the St, Lawrence and the Lakes, without portage, to their moorings at
Chicago.

[Illustration: Several domed buildings reflected in a pool.]
Horticultural Building, with Illinois Building in the background.

Near the centre of the ground stood the Government Building, with a
ready-made look out of keeping with the other architecture. Critics
declared it the only discordant note in the symphony, Looking from the
Illinois Building across the North pond, one saw the Art Palace, of pure
Ionic style, perfectly proportioned, restful to view, contesting with
the Administration Building for the architectural laurels of the Fair.
South of the Illinois Building rose the Woman's Building, and next
Horticultural Hall, with dome high enough to shelter the tallest palms.
The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, of magnificent proportions,
did not tyrannize over its neighbors, though thrice the size of St.
Peter's at Rome, and able easily to have sheltered the Vendome Column.
It was severely classical, with a long perspective of arches, broken
only at the corners and in the centre by portals fit to immortalize
Alexander's triumphs.

The artistic jewel of the Exposition was the "Court of Honor." Down the
Grand Basin you saw the noble statue of the Republic, in dazzling gold,
with the peristyle beyond, a forest of columns surmounted by the
Columbus quadriga. On the right hand stood the Agricultural Building,
upon whose summit the "Diana" of Augustus St. Gaudens had alighted. To
the