Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-05-10

ures each containing a native village from
some PARKWAY land or some strange and
extraordinary mechanical device or pro-
cess. Right in the center of this cosmo-
politan thoroughfare, along which one
may hear a score of languages spoken,
stands a structure which is without doubt
to this exposition what the Eiffel tower
was to the Paris show. Doubtless you
have all read descriptions and seen pictures
of this revolving monster. You have noted
the figures which were given to help you
to a conception of its immensely. But de-
scriptions, pictures and dimensions all
fail of their purpose. The only way in
which one may comprehend the vastness,
the almost weird wonderfulness of this
construction, is to see it. Overshadowing
everything else in that part of the Worlds
fair region, it grows and grows one ap-
proaches nearer Finally it appalls and
overwhelmS. One wonders at first how
any man could have been crazy enough to
put up such monster, or where he found
the capital with which to do it. Evidently
the Chicago papers took the same view of
the enterprise, for it is not long since they
were writing up Ferris as a man who had
wheels in his head.
But Mr. Ferris isn't crazy, any more
than NJ Eiffel was crazy when he built his
great tower. Ferris appears to be an &C
complished engineer, and when his Won
be in couple of weeks, he may have the
laugh on the doubters and sneerers who
have made sport of him. / have noticed
that even those people who pretend to
think this daring engineer a little crazy
say they wouldn't miss a ride on his wheel
if it We're to cost them so instead of one or
two. The genesis of this great wheel
may be found at Atlantic City and other
eastern summer resorts. There the hOrl-
zontal merry-go-rounds, which charged a
nickel a ride, earned fortunes for their
owners. Some one changed the form and
stood the merry-go-round vertically, and
made another fortune out of the nickels
which dropped into his box. These sea-
side wheels are sixty or seventy feet high,
and even at these modest figures the alti-
tude is so great that women and even men
shudder at the thought of riding round it,
though finally fascinated into doing so.
The Worlds fair vertical merry-go-round
carries one not sixty or seventy but go
feet from earth. Each of the thirty-six
cars is nearly as big as Pullman sleeping
coach and will carry sixty passengers.
Imagine if you can the spectacle this
mammoth structure will make revolving
through the air day and night; during the
day visible fifteen miles away, and at
night to be seen forty miles as a huge
moving circle of electric lights.
OF course monster like this will catch
the crowds. 1t is not as tall as the Eiffel
tower was, but it has life and motion,
which the tower had not. From the engi-
neering standpoint the wheel is a greater
marvel than the tower 1t is the engineer
ing wonder of this fair, and in a month it
will be the talk of the country. Grels
numbers of people may not be willing to
pay 81 each for ride upon it, but as locs
he has it in his power to take Navy
passenger each trip as are ordinarily car
ried by half dozen railway trains to-
gether, all well loaded, Mr.. Ferris will
probably be able to carry the people at 81
head, or even so cents, and still get rich.
The marvellous plaisance is full OF such
curiosities. One may ride at the speed of
100 miles an hour, toboggan ON real snow
| or skate on real ice in July, ascend the
tower of Babel, make tour of the world
| and spend all his money in week. Is it
not a great place?
WALTER WELLMAN.