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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



many statues are reflected. It has grace, 

 majesty, delicate coloring; and as you 

 look upon it in early morning or at night- 

 fall you cannot but say to yourself, "Can 

 it be that the Taj Mahal is as beautiful 

 as this ?" Unlike most of the other build- 

 ings, its construction is of a permanent 

 character, and it is built upon land be- 

 longing to the government so that it can 

 be preserved. 



The other architectural feature of the 

 Exposition which made its strongest ap- 

 peal to me was of a totally different 

 kind — the monumental tower which 

 fronts the Court of all Nations. How 

 high it is I do not now recall. That is a 

 matter of insignificance anyway. It is a 

 mass of statues and sculpturing, carvings, 

 arches, moldings, intaglios, mural paint- 

 ings, and jewels. Seen by day, it is a 

 monument of exquisite line and beauti- 

 fully blended colors. Seen by night, it 

 loses nothing in form or in color, but by 

 the wizardry of art has been made to look 

 as if all the Rajahs of India had poured 

 out upon it their most splendid jewels. 



It has been said that this is to be the 

 last of the great international expositions. 

 If so, these two architectural features 

 make a fitting climax to all the beauties 

 that have gone before. 



There are doorways on the most ordi- 

 nary of the Exposition palaces upon the 

 sculpturing and coloring of which pne 

 could spend a day of artistic feasting. 

 Groups of symbolic figures, great foun- 

 tains, hanging lanterns, bell-towers, col- 

 umns and courts, high arches, patios and 

 splendid domes — these become almost 

 commonplaces. And nothing looks naked 

 or undressed, for the whole Fair City 

 seems not to be a thing that was created 

 for this purpose, but to have lived a long 

 time. Tawns, flowers, eucalyptus and 

 cypress trees, pepper and palm, orange 

 and blossoming fruit trees surround the 

 buildings, while the great wall which 

 marks off the grounds is itself a hanging 

 garden of growing flowers. 



In looking upon these grounds I felt as 

 if the artists of the earth — sculptors, 

 architects, decorators, and landscape gar- 

 deners — had united to prove the beauty 

 and the majesty of their own conceptions 

 under the most kindly possible of skies. 



A GRE^AT MOVING PICTURE; 



This fair, however, does not appeal 

 merely to the esthetic sense. Its exhibits 

 of what the world is doing are the best 

 that can be found. One sees in walking 

 through the buildings not piled pyramids 

 of cans and bottles and masses of unre- 

 lated machines. It is a great moving pic- 

 ture. 



You see the wheat itself turned into 

 flour and made into biscuit. An automo- 

 bile is constructed on a moving table be- 

 fore your eyes, and in two minutes the 

 machine is constructed, the chauffeur 

 mounts it, and rides away out of the 

 grounds. You see the miner digging into 

 the hillsides, sluicing the dirt, extracting 

 the gold, the gold refined and cast into a 

 bar. You see the great bureaus of the 

 government in actual operation. 



Life is given to the exhibits, and where 

 it has been impossible to make exhibition 

 of field or factory, moving army, or nat- 

 ural wonder the cinematograph has been 

 brought into use most extensively. There 

 are some sixty free moving-picture shows 

 upon the grounds. 



So much for this city of realized 

 dreams. Now let me say a word as to its 

 significance. It sits beside the Golden 

 Gate. The pioneer has crossed the con- 

 tinent and placed there his outermost 

 camp-fire. Here he has called his sons 

 together and made an exhibition to the 

 world — the new world of the Pacific — of 

 what our civilization can do. He here 

 makes tender to the nations across the 

 Pacific of what is best in Avhat we term 

 Christian civilization, and the nations of 

 the Orient have responded by crossing to 

 this side of the Pacific and placing before 

 us the best that their io,poo years of civ- 

 ilization have produced. 



rut NATION WILL BE PROUD 01'' THIS 

 EXPOSITION 



This is a true meeting of the East and 

 the West, a friendly meeting, a meeting 

 out of which must come better under- 

 standing of each other, a meeting from 

 which each will materially and artistically 

 profit, and a meeting, I believe, which will 

 go far toward a fuller and better under- 

 standing of each other. 



