730 THE EIFFEL TOWER. 



The result of these studies led me, with a view to the exhibition of 

 1889, to propose the erectiou of the tower, uow completed, of which the 

 first plans had been drawn out by two of my chief engineers, Messrs. 

 Nouguier and Koechliu, and by M. Sauvestre, an architect. 



The fundamental idea of these pylons or great archways is based on 

 a method of construction peculiar to me, of which the principal con- 

 sists in giving to the edges of the pyramid a curve of such a nature 

 that this pyramid shall be capable of resisting the force of the wind, 

 without necessitating the junction of the edges by diagonals, as is 

 usually done. 



On this principal the tower was designed in the form of a pyramid, 

 with four curved supports, isolated from each other and joined only by 

 the platforms of the different stories. Higher up only, and where the 

 four supports are suffi ciently close to each other, the ordinary diagonals 

 are used. 



In June, 188G, a commission nominated by M. Lockroy, then min- 

 ister of commerce and industry, finally accepted the plans I had sub- 

 mitted to it, and on January 8, J 887, the agreement with the State and 

 the City of Paris was signed, fixing the conditions under which the 

 tower was to be constructed. 



It is needless to state that considerable energy and perseverance 

 were required to attain this result, for there was much resistance to 

 overcome, and my project had many opponents. 



But I was sustained by the belief that what I proposed would con- 

 tribute to the honor of our national industry and to the success of the 

 exhibition, and it was not without a legitimate sense of satisfaction that 

 I saw an army of navvies begin, on January 28, 1887, those excavations 

 at the bottom of which were to rest the four feet of the tower which 

 had never been out of my thoughts for the last two years. 



I felt moreover — in spite of the violent attacks to which my project 

 had been exposed — that public opinion was on my side, and that a crowd 

 of unknown friends were ready to honor this bold enterprise as soon as 

 it took form. The imagination of men was struck by the colossal di- 

 mensions of the edifice, especially in the matter of height. 



The towers of Notre Dame de Paris reach a height of 217 feet; the 

 Pantheon 260 feet ; the dome of the Invalides, which is the highest 

 monument in Paris, 344 feet ; Strasburg Cathedral is 466 feet ; the 

 Great Pyramid of Egypt 479 feet; the Cathedral of Kouen rises 492 

 feet from the ground, and is only surpassed by Cologne Cathedral, 

 which, lately completed, attains to 522 feet; but the Americans again 

 outdid this by erecting at Wasliington an immense obelisk in masonry 

 which reaches a height of 555 feet, and was constructed with immense 

 difflculty. 



Experience has shown however that masonry is not suitable for a 

 construction of the kind. With iron, on the contrary, — of which the 

 properties are so remarkable, since it may be as readily employed in ten- 



