Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876. Various

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      We shall have amply disposed of the subject of transportation when we add that the neighborhood or city supply to the thirteen entrance-gates is provided for by steam-roads capable of carrying twenty-four thousand persons hourly, and tram-roads seating seven thousand, besides an irregular militia or voltigeur force of light wagons, small steamers and omnibuses equal to a demand of two or three thousand more in the same time. It was not deemed likely that Philadelphia would require conveyance for half of her population every day. Should that supposition prove erroneous, the excess can fall back upon the safe and inexpensive vehicle of 1776, 1851, 1867 and 1873—sole leather.

      Let us return to our packing-cases, and see where they go. To watch the gradual dispersal of a congregation to their several places of abode is always interesting. Especially is it so when those places of retreat bear the names and fly the flags of the several nations of the globe. This stout cube of deal, triple-bound with iron, disappears under the asp and winged sphere of the Pharaohs. That other, big with rich velvets and broideries, seeks the tricolor of France. Yonder, a wealth of silks and lacquer finds a resting-place in the carved black-walnut étagères of Japan. Here go, cased in the spoils of the fjelds, toward a pavilion seventy-five paces long and twenty wide, the bulky contributions of the Norsemen. Swedish carpentry in perfection offers to a deposit separate from that of the sister-kingdom a distinct receptacle. Close at hand stand the antipodes in the pavilion of Chili, that opens its graceful portal to bales sprinkled mayhap with the ashes of Aconcagua. There "crashes a sturdy box of stout John Bull;" and Russia, Tunis and Canada roll into close neighborhood with him and each other. A queer and not, let us hope, altogether transitory show of international comity is this. Many a high-sounding, much-heralded and more-debating Peace Congress has been held with less effect than that conducted by these humble porters, carpenters and decorators. This one has solidity. Its elements are palpable. The peoples not only bring their choicest possessions, but they also set up around them their local habitations. It is a cosmopolitan town that has sprung into being beneath the great roof and glitters in the rays of our republican sun. In its rectangularly-planned streets, alleys and plazas every style of architecture is represented—domestic, state and ecclesiastical, ancient, mediæval and modern. The spirit and taste of most of the races and climes find expression, giving thus the Sydenham and the Hyde Park palaces in one. The reproductions at the former place were the work of English hands: those before us are executed, for the most part, by workmen to whom the originals are native and familiar. In this feature of the interior of the Main Building we are amply compensated for the breaking up of the coup d'oeil by a multiplicity of discordant forms. The space is still so vast as to maintain the effect of unity; and this notwithstanding the considerable height of some of the national stalls, that of Spain, for example, sending aloft its trophy of Moorish shields and its effigy of the world-seeking Genoese to an elevation of forty-six feet. The Moorish colonnade of the Brazilian pavilion lifts its head in graceful rivalry of the lofty front reared by the other branch of the Iberian race. In so vast an expanse this friendly competition of Spaniards and Portuguese becomes, to the eye, a union of their pretensions; and a single family of thirty-three millions in Europe and America combines to present us with two of the handsomest structures in the hall.

      FAÇADE OF THE BRAZILIAN DIVISION, MAIN BUILDING.

      A moderate dip into statistics can no longer be evaded. We must map out the microcosm, and allot to each sovereign power its quota of the surface. The great European states which have assumed within the century the supreme direction of human affairs are assigned a prominent central position in the Main Building. Great Britain and her Asiatic possessions occupy just eighty-three feet less than a hundred thousand; her other colonies, including Canada, 48,150; France and her colonies, 43,314; Germany, 27,975; Austria, 24,070; Russia, 11,002; Spain, 11,253; Sweden and Belgium, each 15,358; Norway, 6897; Italy, 8167; Japan, 16,566; Switzerland, 6646; China, 7504; Brazil, 6397; Egypt, 5146; Mexico, 6504; Turkey, 4805; Denmark, 1462; and Tunis, 2015. These, with minor apportionments to Venezuela, the Argentine Confederation, Chili, Peru and the Orange Free State of South Africa, cover the original area of the structure, deducting the reservation of 187,705 feet for the United States, and excluding thirty-eight thousand square feet in the annexes. France must be credited, in explanation of her comparatively limited territory under the main roof, with her external pavilions devoted to bronzes, glass, perfumery and (chief of all) to her magnificent government exhibit of technical plans, drawings and models in engineering, civil and military, and architecture. These outside contributions constitute a link between her more substantial displays and the five hundred paintings, fifty statues, etc. she places in Memorial Hall.

      In Machinery and Agricultural Halls, respectively, Great Britain has 37,125 and 18,745 feet; Germany, 10,757 and 4875; France, 10,139 and 15,574; Belgium, 9375 and 1851; Canada, 4300 and 10,094; Brazil, 4000 and 4657; Sweden, 3168 and 2603; Spain, 2248 and 5005; Russia, 1500 and 6785; Chili, 480 and 2493; Norway, 360 and 1590. Austria occupies 1536 feet in Mechanical Hall; and in that of Agriculture are the following additional allotments: Netherlands, 4276; Denmark, 836; Japan, 1665; Peru, 1632; Liberia, 1536; Siam, 1220; Portugal, 1020.

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