Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-18
Height of the Great Tower
as Compared to Some Of
the Worlds Tal1est
Structures.
Special Correspondence of The Star.

| Special Correspondence Of The Star.
PARIS. May A, 1907.
painter has just fallen from the Eiffel
| Tower. Four more men must fall to make
! the awful average of the most dangerous
| painting Job in the world-repeated every
six years only
They are repainting the Eiffel Tower,
and all Paris is concerned about the color,
| on which depends whether the gigantic
| mass of iron shall be the eyesore or the
glory. Of the capital.
Its first shade was dead leaf" In 1889.
| When the sun lit it up to hazy golden with
an unreal effect of jewelers. fragility, even
the artists who now curse it admitted that
the Eiffel Tower had its nobility.
In 1896, after immense discussion, they
reprinted 1t orange, magnetic currents
even more than light and weather having
turned 1t to a dingy chocolate, heavy and
obtrusive. In strong sun the orange
showed cleaning copper or red gold. Oscar
Wilde declared 1t magnificent. Puvis de
Chavannes threatened to blow it up with
dynamite. From this period dated the bad
name the tower acquired as a colossal
piece Of engineering vulgarity. usurping
the artistic note of Paris
Then, for the exposition, they painted 1t
"sun color" In bright lights the tower
became thing of glory once again.
Cali Depends Upon the Paint"
"All depends upon the paint!" declares
the city's architect, Bouyard, ga fact
which shows the utter inartistic character
Of the TITANIC intruder. The pyramids OF
Egypt were originally cased with gleam-
ing marble; but its present lack does not
detract from the artistic appropriateness
of the pyramids to their situation!"
The tower cleaned sun color seven years
ago. But the atmospheric electricity re-
ceiyed every hour since then by such an
unprecedented mass of iron reaching into
the air 80 high is incalculable. Conduct
lead it down the four piles to fifty feet be-
low the water-bearing stratum; but the
effect >on the paint is there for every one
to see. It does not crack the paint on.
The paint simply disappears, leaving the
ugly chocolate, the dingy brown Of the
oxidizing iron.
1t is the towers way Of calling for new
victims Fifty painters working continue
ously together, take three months to do
single coat. Few tourists realze-the inn
mense proportions Of the tower, but
Parisians, by experience, show you a Pc
culiar phenomenon Of its deceptive SYM
They take you In cab close to the
tower. It looks heavy and chunky. Il
seems sinking into the earth from It's
cab the tower grove higher and slenderer.
It seems to lift itself from the earth, like
q person rising from his knees. Why It's
bigger than before!. you say. At mile
boats that fit beside It now look tiny. The
buildings round about are growing small
But the tower grows! Then at two miles
thing Of utter lghtness, higher, slenderer
and more open In its lacework than when
you gaped at Its foot almost disappointed!
In a country town thirty miles from
| n~lr 1ory got OF v,fovbf md unit
seaychlight!
Some Comparisons.
You think Niagara Falls are high7 They
are 165 feet. and st. Paul's Cathedral. Lon
don, is 4O4 feet Niagara Falls could de-
scend from below st. Paul's dome. Now
place St. Paul's beside the Eiffel tower. It
reaches only to the second platform Of the
tower-the real beginning of its slender
shaft!
Place the Eiffel tower beside the greatest
buildings of the world. The great pyramid
Neither does the >spire Of the Cologne
Cathedral.
only one set Of buildings, nevertheless.
are higher than the Cologne Cathedral
can cities. the tallest actually existing being,
say, 655 feet high. It would not reach to
the towers intermediate platform, either.
The Hottest masonry construction In the
WOflQ ID 10 Dc the singer UuIluiHS oXteu-
sion, at the corner Of Liberty street and
Broadway New York. Beating any other
American sky-scraper by 81 feet 1t will
stick 812 feet into the air. And vet even
1t will not reach to the Nffel towers inter-
mediate platform!
You can easily detect this intermediate
platform half way up the slender shaft of
the Eiffel tower. In the nearer photographs
1t shows for what it is-a mere platform
for shifting passengers from one set of ele-
vators to another, built in the center Of the