EXPOSITION OF 1867. 
869 
fourteen feet wide, more than eighty feet high, and nearly a 
mile in circumference, it afforded opportunity for the grandest 
display of massive machinery ever witnessed by man. The 
walls were of brick and iron, the outer wall chiefly of the lat¬ 
ter material, much of the space being occupied by windows, 
and the structure depending largely for its strength upon 176 
equidistant pillars of iron, each 85 feet high and weigh¬ 
ing 24,000 pounds—the flags of all nations being displayed 
from their projecting tops. The over-arching roof was of 
wrought iron, skilfully framed, and covered with undulating 
plates of the same material. In the centre of the nave, and 
running throughout its course, except at the intersection of the 
grand radiating avenues, was an iron platform, ten feet wide 
and fourteen feet above the ground floor, with railing on either 
side, and surmounted at frequent intervals by the pavilions 
and trophies of the different nations^ designed as a grand 
promenade for such as wished to traverse the nave with the 
advantage of looking down upon its machinery and the pro¬ 
cesses going on there, from above. 
The’ roof of the Palace within the nave, being mostly of glass, 
furnished an abundance of light in every part, which, indeed, 
in many of the courts had to be tempered by awnings of light 
rnuslin. The supports, independent of walls, were pillars of 
iron and of wood. 
The floors of the avenues and of many of the uncarpeted 
courts were of a hard and smoothly laid cement. 
Thus much of what was visible. A word now of the in¬ 
visible : 
The water was furnished from the Seine ; being first raised 
by five powerful stationary engines and the engine of a French 
frigate to the heights of Trocadero, on the other side, where, at 
an elevation of 75 feet, was prepared a reservoir with an area 
of 39,000 square feet. From this reservoir it was distributed 
through 18,000 yards of iron pipejbo all places in the Park and 
Palace where required. Connections were also made with the 
great water supplies of the city, so that in case of fire, the 
amount should be unlimited. 
24 Ag. Trans. 
