62 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



stairs and platforms which will be required in order to 

 provide for access to every part of the surface of the in- 

 terior globe, and to afford the means of obtaining a view 

 of a considerable extent of it, there is to be a space of 

 about fifty feet between it and its covering, so that the 

 latter must have an inside diameter of about 520 feet. 

 It is also to be raised about sixty feet above the ground, so 

 that the total altitude of the structure will be not far short 

 of 600 feet. 



M. Reclus adds to his general description a statement 

 furnished by a competent engineer giving a general 

 estimate for the erection of the globe, with some further 

 constructive details which are, briefly, as follows : Both 

 the globe and the envelope are to be built up of iron 

 meridians connected by spiral bands, leaving apertures 

 nowhere more than two metres wide. The envelope is to 

 be covered with thick plates of glass, and either painted 

 outside on a slightly roughened surface, or inside with the 

 surface remaining polished, either of which methods are 

 stated to have certain advantages with corresponding dis- 

 advantages. The envelope being exposed to storms and 

 offering such an enormous surface to the wind would not 

 be safe on a single pedestal. It is therefore proposed to 

 have four supports placed about 140 feet apart, and built 

 of masonry to the required height of sixty feet. The globe 

 itself is to have a surface of plaster, on which all the 

 details are to be modelled and tinted, the oceans alone 

 being covered with thin glass. In order to provide access 

 to every part of the surface of the globe it is proposed to 

 construct in the space between the globe and its covering, 

 but much nearer to the former, a broad platform, ascend- 

 ing spirally from the South to the North Pole in twenty- 

 four spires, with a maximum rise of one in twenty. The 

 balustrade on the inner side of this ascending platform is to 

 be one metre (three feet three inches) from the surface of 

 the globe, and the total length of the walk along it will be 

 about five miles. But as the successive turns of this 

 spiral pathway would be about twenty feet above each other, 

 the larger portion of the globe's surface would be at too 

 great a distance, and would be seen too obliquely, to 



