New-York tribune., 1878-04-30

and the d0mes may remind you OF real domes.
Standing on the bridge, at any rate, the Exhi-
btion may be seen at it's best. Nevertheless
the visitor who comes here with fresh memories of
Philadelphia must be advised to leave them behind
him if he desires to be impressed by the general eff
feet Of this Exhibition. There is nothing cOmpar-
able to the splendor and beauty which delighted him
in Fairmount Park There could be nothing, for
Pans has $500 acres of garden in which to set
up its buildings. The Bois de Boulogne 900 acIes)
being out of the question: all idea of landscape gar
dening on great scale had to be abandoned, If 1t
was ever thought of. The Exhibition is packed into
an area which will just hold the necessary struc-
lures. The few plots of grass and the rustic cot
tages may suffice to suggest the idea of a real
park; but they are not more than pleasant
minderthat such thing as Nature does exist One
noble feature there Is here the Seine. whose blue
flood rolls past between the Champ de Mars and the
lrocadero spanned by bridge built as a monument
OF the defeat of Prussia, and serving to-day to make
her victory more memorable. Nor is there to be had
from any point of the interior such vista greeted
the eye at the entrance of the main building i'll
Philadelphia. Nowhere can the Exhibition, any
great portion of it, be seen at glance. General
effect has everywhere been sacrificed to details per-
haps 10 tho passion for system which distinguishes
the French. There nothing TO prevent them
from leaving open the whole of their great
section-20O feet longer than the Philadel-
phia hall-but they have cut il up into
many compartments as there are groups and
classes and these again subdivided for indivId
ua exhibitors. Ii is series of closed aises with
shallow shops each side of each aisle. At certain
points the Enclosures larger, but you can no
where look arOuR4 you for any great distance in all
directions. Perhaps this is the most businesske
arrangement but is far from being the most pic
turesque and 1t is not impressive at all. And the
lowness of the roof would itself be fatal to at
ternTt to secure such ensemble as that at Phila
delphia These main buildings are hardly more than
one-haf the height of the American The moment
you enter the of oppression and conine-
ment. If you pass into the asles which
divide the groups, and which arc themselves
undivided, the feeling is the same for the
asles are extremely narrow-perhaps fifteen feet
wde-and the roof of ptiless glass and iron comes
close down, and the walls stretch dead away in un-
broken monotony. In the uncovered avenues il is
not much better. The buildings are everywhere
elbowing each other The Main Avenue-that on
which the facades Of the various foreign nations
have been erected alonp which the procession of all
the great digntarios OF France is to pass OH the
opening day, and which is TO be the great thorough
fare of the ExlnbtlOn-is but forty feet wide. In
some of the foreign sections each of which was
ranged at the will of its commissioner, there are
fewer partitions in and in the British for
example; but even shero n wall between sections
was obligatory and wall which the French them
selves built divides the machinery from all the rest
Of the section.
TIE VENTILATION DEFECTIVE.
What promises to bo a much graver defect ~ the
want of air. In the long, narrow aisles, Of which
have spoken there is, so far as l can see, absO-
lutely no ventilation save such may be effected
by lateral currents of air and ono long draught
from end TO end In the main compartments, and
still more in the machine galleries, there win
dows opening outward high up. but numerous
aud lofty are the partitions, that the circulation of
air is checked, if not completely stopped. Already
i'm many parts Of the buildings the air il sitting.
II il be so now, when comparatively few persons
are there, when many divisions are still open,
when doors are not hung. and when great blasts of
airpour through the wider transvera galleries. what
will it be by and by, when the crowds great
and the supply Of air il reduced Aud what will
the heat bel Even in the middle Of April il isop-
pressve The sun burns through the glass roof, and
the masses of iron absorb and duse caloric till the
aisles are like furnaces. The canvas screens are an
impcrlect protection, and the asles there are rs
vet no screens. Much may be added, but the in
hercnt defects OF tho plan cannot be mended.