Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-09-15
FORMS OF BEAUTY
Made from All Substances a
the Fair.
THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING.

THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING.
Its Forty Acres of Floor Space Is u
Worlds Fair In ltself-Displays of
Nagnifcence Which Have Never Been
Equalled-Somc Facts About the Com
struction of the Great Building Itself.
WORLDS FAIR, Sept. 5. - Especial -
Beneath the high arched and iron CIR
dered roof (itself a marvel of science and
art) of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts
building are gathered the richest results
Of a thousand years of the skill and taste
Of all mankind from Nova Zembia to Pat
agonia. 1t is impossible to mention a
substance from grass to gold or from Cos
samer so light that it must be shown un-
der glass because a breath would watt it
away, to the hardest flint, but one may
find 1t there in scores or even thousands of
forms. There n might, if life were not
SO brief that days only can be given where
months are too short, trace that evolution
of the arts of every race of mankind and
gather abundant materials for the elucida-
ton OF an answer to the great question
why does each nation develop its arts
along its own peculiar line despite the in
fuence of other nations?
On those forty acres of floor space is
piled a real wealth exceeding that of
many an ancient city of renown and the
work embodied in the articles has been
roughly computed as equivalent to the la
Dor of 10000 skilled men for twenty years.
Are you interested in ivory? There you
may find it in hundreds of forms from the
polished elephant tusk down to comical
figures an inch in length on the faces Of
which the patient and skillful japanese
have depicted all the emotions of human
1ty. In wool? 1t is not possible in a COL
umn of print like this to give the bare
names of the fabrics, from delicate stuffs
worth their weight in gold to heavy robes
and cashmere shawls and Navajo blankets
SO closely woven that water can be carried
in them. In silk: Familiar as they are,
language can scarcely convey an idea of
the delicate fabrics wrought on the looms
OF Franc by artists (they cannot be called
artisans) of such skill that, it is said, chill
dren followed their parents in the same
line OF work for two generations before
the hereditary talent was developed up to
that capacity.
In wood there is more scroll work and
OF a greater variety than was ever before
collected in one place, and the carvings can
but be mentioned because they cannot be
described. Leather, which seems in COM
mon so very plain and homely an object Of
use, is there the basis for fine art, and
when on sees the changes wrought in it
he is almost persuaded that if no other
substance were available a refined ~civiliza.
ton might easily find expression in that
alone. All the metals, precious or useful,
are worked into objects of surprising
beauty. Under the hands of the japanese
the common distinction is lost sight of and
iron is made as precious as gold by the
artistic work o on it. In SO plebian an
article as clay, including the finer kinds
OF earth, there are over 1900 articles in
every conceivable form and style of beauty
from the 10000 vase down to bits of pot
terry no longer than ones thumb, but glow
ing with color and rich in elaborate deco.
rations.
Other buildings are merely parts of a
worlds fair; this is a worlds fair. In
bronzes, vases, damascened work and some
other lines it so far exceeds any previous
exhibit that comparison seems ridiculous.
There is a touch of the humorous, too, in
the surprising uses made of many sub
stances. Snakeskin does not suggest
beauty, bnt here it is seen in many lovely
forms. The show of parchments is COM
plete. Vellum is exhibited in every con-
ceivable style. Grass, grains. gums. wax,
teeth, hair, paper, bark, bone, fish scales,
%celluloid, coral, rushes, bamboo, all the
skins of all the animals, leaves and vines
and roots, are all worked into forms of
beauty. The most riotous imagination
held with the loosest rein cannot picture
an artistic form in any substance, but you
may find it here.
And yet there are those who say that
the building itself is a greater curiosity
or rather a greater triumph of skill-than
anything in it. It has often been de-
scribed, but the main points will bear one
more repetition. 1t is 1857 feet long and
767 feet wide, with a height along the cen
trail hall of 24514 feet, and deducting there
from the roof and the space below the
floor the height in the clear interior is 2O3
feet. The sides and corner pavilions of
course are lower. Over all this central
section extends a single span truss of 1882
feet. Deducting the side support there is
thus a self-supporting, iron arched roof
1854 feet in the clear, without a pillar or in
cline brace, the largest roof of the kind in
the world. There are 100000 pounds of
steel in the trusses of central hall and
10000 600 pounds Of iron in the nave; and
all these magnificent arches and girders,
all the iron in the roofin fact, were sold to
St. Louis parties before being placed here.
There are over 5000, 600 feet of lumber in
the floor and five average carloads of nails.
One thousand cottages Of Is by so feet
each could be placed in the building; and
rs one walks through the space occupied
by a particular nation he often comes upon
a separated building which by comparison
seems small till he enters and finds it a
miniature worlds fair. Thirty great stair
cases lead to the galleries. Two avenues
fifty feet wide traverse the building in it's
two extensions, crossing in the center; five
narrow on each side run the full
length and twice as many cross these from
side to side. In almost every open space
in the building and chiefly at the intersec-
tim nj tho m nis. o,,o, -, mr. u~p n :, ,r< e..