Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/115

Rh shows the usual development instruments well stocked with material. The great oval is for out-of-door meets and is almost daily in use.

In thus decentralizing the interesting points of the exhibition, the administration was parting company with the principles of housing everything under one roof and thus made a new and very attractive innovation. It avoided overcrowding of the visitors and divided them by a variety of interests located in different halls; it reduced the danger of a large fire, hoping, in case there should be one, to limit it to one or a part of one building by a system of hydrants most generously distributed through the grounds. Through this division of subjects among a large number of buildings it was possible for the visitor to pursue his studies on the subject he was interested in especially, without being disturbed and crowded out by visitors interested in other pursuits.

One of the most noteworthy features of the exposition was the architectural beauty of the buildings, including their interior decorations. While the designs of the various buildings differed from each other individually, their structural execution showed that they belonged to the same genus, while all were artistically adapted to the more practical purposes which they were intended to serve. Made principally of wood, all exposed surfaces were provided with a fireproof, coarse-grained covering. Gay, but superfluous, bunting, likely to catch fire and calculated to detract the visitor's eye from the main objects of the exposition, was carefully avoided, while a fine sense of artistic finish, calculated to invite the visitor to concentrate his attentions on the chief objects of the exposition, was everywhere apparent. The quiet, serious character of the buildings, their generous dimensions, large door-ways, wide passage-ways, an abundant provision of light and air, were features without attracting special attention to themselves, that were nevertheless in the most perfect harmony with the serious purposes and the hygienic characters of the exhibition and aided materially in sustaining instead of fatiguing the attention of the visitors.

It could never have been our purpose to attempt giving a full description of this exhibition. Such an undertaking would require a whole corps of editors and end in the publication of a long series of illustrated books. The intention here is to give only a very brief review of a few chapters in the greatest living handbook of hygiene ever put together and for which the exposition stood from the beginning and to which high purpose, in reality, it remained true to the end.

Historical Division.—How deep, wide and far-reaching were the conceptions dominating the minds of those that were called upon to