The Book of the Fair - Chapter 18



Page 543

Chapter the Eighteenth:
Transportation

While here and there exception may be taken to the arrangement and 
combination of exhibits, as the grouping of musical instruments in the 
department of Electricity, and of mail-bags and Leghorn hats in that of 
Liberal Arts, it is generally conceded that the entire Exposition and each 
of its divisions and subdivisions have been planned with consummate skill. 
And nowhere is this more apparent than in the Transportation building. 
Here, as elsewhere, but here especially are features that claim the 
attention of every class of visitors; and as the chief of this department 
states, "Among its main purposes was to fascinate and attract by the 
presentation of the most striking contrasts; to educate by showing the 
wonderful achievements of engineering science, and the great results 
developed from apparently simple discoveries and inventions." 

Whether for study or for the mere gratification of curiosity, the exhibits 
grouped in this department are of surpassing interest; for here is 
presented in most attractive form a complete history of all the known 
methods and appliances for travel and transportation, barbarous, semi-
barbarous, and civilized, from the pack animal to the vestibuled train, 
and from the dug-out of the savage to the swiftest of transatlantic 
steamers. In no branch of human endeavor, except in the application of 
electric power, has such progress been made as here is shown, and nowhere 
than in this country of magnificent distances has the annihilation of 
distance been more nearly approached. Yet achievement thus far is but a 
foretaste of that which is to come; there are those now living who may 
journey by rail from Paris, possibly without change of cars, to a great 
world's fair to be held, let us say, in New York, toward the middle of the 
coming century.(1)

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"Of all inventions," remarks Macaulay, "the alphabet and the printing 
press alone excepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done 
most for the civilization of our species." Such appliances are in truth 
the prime factors of commercial and industrial growth, and never before 
was such an opportunity for observing their development in all their 
manifold stages. 

In structural detail the Transportation building, with its spacious annex, 
is one of the simplest and most unassuming of all the Exposition edifices, 
and yet with a richness of decorative forms that relieves it from poverty 
of design. But in covering the allotted space of fifteen and a half acres, 
its architects, the Chicago firm of Adler and Sullivan, had first to 
consider the character of the display whose housing was to be intrusted to 
their care, largely consisting of rolling stock and other cumbersome 
exhibits. Thus it was that architectural symmetry and proportion were made 
in a measure to give place to considerations of practical utility, that 
except for the fisheries building, its width in relation to length, is 
smaller than in any of the principal structures, and that its exterior 
aspect differs essentially from all the rest. 

The Transportation building proper was erected on the southwestern bank of 
the lagoon which surrounds the wooded island forming a portion of the 
Horticultural grounds. Opening into it and covering a larger area is the 
annex, extending westward almost to the limits of the park, and in which 
are the principal railroad exhibits of the United States, Great Britain, 
and Canada. In the main facade, separated by the lagoon from the hall of 
Manufactures 

Page 545

and Liberal Arts, is the point of architectural emphasis, "the golden 
doorway," enclosed by a fretted arch or series of arches resplendent with 
gilding, and with a chaste embroidery of bas-reliefs and arabesques. 
Around this portal are symbolic groups representing ancient modes of 
transportation as contrasted with the luxuries of modern travel. On either 
side are balconies and terraces, the latter with small kiosks, somewhat in 
the Mogul style of architecture. The expanse of frontage is further 
relieved by smaller doorways on either side of the more spacious entrance, 
and by allegorical figures representing the purposes of the building. At 
the ends are still other doorways, with several opening from the rear 
facade, the former with projecting pavilions richly decorated and flanked 
as in front by terraces. The roof, which is in three sections, the central 
one rising above the others, and with walls so pierced as to form an 
arcaded clear story, is surmounted by a cupola 160 feet in height, and 
surrounded by balconies to which, as also to the galleries, visitors are 
conveyed by swift-running elevators from the ground floor. From the higher 
balconies is viewed to the best advantage the city of the Fair. 

Of all the Exposition buildings this is the only one whose exterior has 
been treated with color decorations. Beginning at the base with a light, 
delicate red, the polychrome treatment culminates in the golden doorway 
and the spandrels of the arches, in the centre of which are winged female 
figures, typical of transportation methods. This portion of the design is 
executed with singular delicacy of technique, the hues interblending in 
thirty shades, and yet with such harmony that the entire effect is that of 
a single painting. On the northern side is a line of statuary representing 
great inventors; on the south, on either side of the doorway, are statues 
of Stevenson, Watt, Vanderbilt, and others, with figures emblematic of 
land and water transportation, and on the east are other symbolical 
groups. 

The interior resembles somewhat an ancient basilica, the general plan 
partaking of the Romanesque, though with features suggestive of the French 
school as represented in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. But whatever their 
motif, the artificers of the Transportation hall, by whom were also 
designed the Auditorium and other prominent buildings recently erected in 
Chicago, have here adopted a style of treatment at once simple, chaste, 
and refined. 

At right angles to the main interior facades are lines of rails, separated 
by passage-ways, and so spaced that two pairs gives to each of the bays a 
width of thirty-two feet. "This," says one of the Exposition architects, 
"became the module of dimension and the common divisor of the plan, 
forming the basis of the whole architectural scheme." In the annex, a 
plain one story building, are also railroad tracks, perpendicular to the 

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transfer table, by the use of which the heaviest of rolling stock was 
readily placed in position. Along the central nave and elsewhere are long 
lines of locomotives, burnished to an almost painful degree of brightness. 
Add to this an endless array of other massive exhibits, to which an 
imposing vista of colonnades imparts a further emphasis, and we have in 
the hall of Transportation a spectacle which the visitor does not readily 
forget. 

It was one of the purposes of this department to furnish, in a series of 
object lessons and with a wealth of detail such as was never before 
presented in written or illustrative form, a history of that science in 
all its details, such as carries the mind back from the year of 1893 to 
cycles long antedating the reign of the Pharaohs. Here, in its three main 
divisions of railways, vehicles, and vessels, are all known appliances for 
the conveyance of man, and that which many and nature have produced, with 
specimens or models of the machinery, and of all else whereby have been 
evolved the ancient and modern systems of locomotion and transportation. 
In the railroad groups are included mountain, spiral, and ship railways, 
with locomotives of every kind, from the one driven by George Stephenson 
to the hugest of steam leviathans. There are freight and passenger cars; 
drawing-room, parlor, and dining cars; officers' and private cars; mail, 
baggage, and express cars; working and construction cars; and if there by 
any other than these, then are they here on exposition. Here also are 
illustrated railroad construction, maintenance, equipment, operation, and 
management, with the history of railroads, exemplified by a collection of 
rolling-stock and relics, some of them more than half a century old. In 
the vehicles group are such as are or have been used on common roads, from 
an ancient war-chariot to a tally-ho coach, from a Chinese wheel-barrow to 
a brougham and victoria, and from the lumbering Indian bullock-cart to the 
sleigh and the swift-running bicycle. In the marine division are 
represented vessels of every form and size, from an African pirogue to an 
ocean-going steamer, with models of war-ships and war-boats selected from 
all the nations of the world. 

Says the chief of the department, Willard A. Smith: "It is but moderate 
and fair to state that the railway division has never been approached in 
extent, variety, and general interest; that the vehicle division is a 
surprise even to the best informed, and that no previous marine exhibit of 
the many which have been held 

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compares with this one in variety of detail and number of striking 
features. Two years ago it would certainly have been deemed improbable and 
even impossible, that we should secure from Europe a number of locomotives 
and cars, besides a large amount of railroad material and machinery, in 
view of the fact that there is no market in this country for such things. 
Almost equally improbably was considered the assembling here in an inland 
city of models of the world's navies, and of more than seventy-five 
carriages made by the most famous European builders. When this department 
was organized, no American, not immediately concerned in the work, 
believed it could be made other than purely American, and not a single 
country asked for space. Extremely discouraging was the reluctance with 
which two great foreign powers granted the privilege of reserving - not 
assigning - for each 15,000 square feet. Briefly, it may be said, that the 
plans adopted have so won their way that more than one third of the entire 
space was awarded to foreign countries, with applications for additional 
areas, some of which we were compelled to refuse." 

The railroad exhibits are the most prominent feature in the department of 
Transportation, including locomotives, cars, railroad trains, and railroad 
materials and supplies, contributed by many companies and by all the 
nations whose systems of intercommunication are most fully developed. Here 
is represented a branch of industry wherein is invested a capital of $28,
000,000,000, of which more than one third was supplied by the United 
States. There is not enough money in the world, including its entire 
metallic and paper currency, to purchase on half of its railways, and the 
aggregate banking capital of all the nations forms but an insignificant 
amount as compared with that which has been sunk in railway enterprise. To 
civilized communities the railway is almost as necessary as is the 
circulation of blood to the individual, not only furnishing the means of 
locomotion, but bringing to our doors nearly everything we eat or drink or 
wear. Few there were who foresaw the marvellous events accomplished by 
railroad development, from the time when Stephenson drove his first 
locomotive at the rate of a dozen miles an hour, with a signal man riding 
in advance, until today, 60,000 locomotives speed at thrice that rate over 
350,000 miles of track. And even in these closing years of the century, 
railroad enterprise is almost in its infancy, its benefits extending to 
less than one half of the habitable globe. In the entire continent of 
Africa there are less than 4,000 miles of road; in eastern and 
northeastern Asia there are less than 3,000, while South America and 
Australia have but a few thousand miles. Yet each of these regions could 
support a larger population than that of the United States, where a few of 
the leading corporations control a larger roadway and a heavier volume of 
traffic than all these countries combined. 

In passing in review the railway exhibits of the United States, I will 
begin with that of our pioneer enterprise, the Baltimore and Ohio company, 
in whose elaborate display, almost in the centre of the annex, is a 
collection of the railways of the world, from those of most primitive 
pattern to the Royal 

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Blue Line express now running between New York and Washington. First, 
however, it may be of interest to sketch briefly the history and condition 
of our railroad systems, with their 175,000 miles of track, or more than 
one half the total mileage of the world. 

In 1827 was laid the first rough track between Quincy and Boston, for 
hauling granite by horse-power for the Bunker hill monument. A year or two 
later a locomotive resembling that which Stephenson built was shipped from 
England for experimental purposes. It weighed about five tons, and drew on 
a level road-bed near the town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania, a load of some 
30 tons, at a maximum rate of 25 miles an hour, this being considered at 
the time a marvel of speed and power. Early in 1830 was opened the first 
section of the Baltimore and Ohio railraod, with wooden rails fastened by 
bars of iron. It was not until the following year that sufficient cars 
were built for regular passenger travel, and in July of that year was 
published in a Baltimore journal the first railway time table issued in 
the United States. It read in part as follows: "A brigade of cars will 
leave the depot on Pratt St. at 6 and 10 o'clock A.M., and at 3 and 4 
o'clock P.M., and will leave the depot at Ellicott's Mills at 6 and 8 ½ 
A.M., and at 12 ½ and 6 P.M." Thus did the burghers of Baltimore journey 
in their brigades of cars, still drawn by horse-power; for not until 1833 
were steam-engines placed on the road. Meanwhile, in October 1831, the 
first passenger train drawn by a locomotive ran between Albany and 
Schenectady on the Mohawk and Hudson line. The engine used was the John 
Bull, of historic fame, now occupying a place of honor among the exhibits 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. 

As to the discomforts attending these primitive modes of travel, the 
following extract from Gilpin's Cosmopolitan Railway may serve as a 
description: "The cars were of the rudest construction, resembling at 
first the old-fashioned English stage-coach, and with none of the modern 
appliances. The seats were narrow, stiffbacked and uncushioned, and the 
roof of the car so low that in winter ventilation was impossible. At each 
end a stove warmed the poisonous atmosphere, and at night a single tallow 
candle gave forth a dim and flickering light. The springs were of the most 
primitive pattern, causing the vehicle to jolt and the sashes to rattle 
like those of a modern hotel coach, so that reading and conversation 

Page 550

were not to be thought of. The dust was intolerable, and as there were 
neither spark arresters on the engine nor screens at the windows, the 
traveller emerged from his car smutted and begrimed as though he had 
passed the hours in a blacksmith's shop." 

From a score of mile in 1830 the length of track in operation increased to 
nearly 30,000 miles in 1860. During the time of the civil war less than 3,
000 miles were constructed; but in the seven years ending with 1872, the 
total mileage was almost doubled, and thenceforth rapidly increased until, 
as I have said, in 1892 there were 175,000 miles of road-bed. Of this 
about one third lies west of the Mississippi river, a region where in 1850 
there was not a single mile of track. In the United States there is on an 
average a mile of railroad to every 500 inhabitants, while in Europe the 
average is a mile to every 2,000 inhabitants, the volume of traffic in 
proportion to population far exceeding that of European countries. The 
operations of the larger companies are on a colossal scale, some of them 
handling 40,000 or 50,000 tons of freight a day, and with a corresponding 
amount of passenger travel. The total of freightage is probably not less 
than 600,000,000 tons a year, and of passenger fares about 500,000,000, 
from which the gross earnings may be estimated at $1,100,000,000, and the 
net earnings at nearly one third of that amount. 

In the exhibit of the Baltimore and Ohio company, occupying nearly an acre 
of floor space, is an almost complete illustration of railroad 
development, both as to engines and cars, the former arranged as models or 
originals of locomotives that have become historic. The collection begins 
with a facsimile of Sir Isaac Newton's steam carriage, fashioned in 1680 
on principles suggested by Hero's aeropilon, or steam ball, which latter 
invention bears date 130 B.C. Newton's apparatus consisted of a copper 
boiler mounted on a frame which rests on wheels, a pipe with plug valve 
pointing backward from the boiler, and with the operated seated in front, 
the reactionary force of the steam, generated by atmospheric resistance, 
being expected to furnish the motive power. Whether Sir Isaac's carriage 
could ever be induced to move, history recordeth not, and it can only be 
said that, if the one exhibited at the Fair is a faithful reproduction, it 
does not look as if it could. 

Next is a model of a steam carriage, in which is partially reproduced 
Denis Papin's invention of 1690. The former was the contrivance of a 
French army officer, and was intended for military service. It was one of 
the most cumbersome contrivances that man could devise, its heavy frame 
mounted on three wheels, the huge kettle-shaped boiler suspended over the 
single forward wheel, with single-acting cylinders, steering, and other 
apparatus, the operator seated on a platform, guiding the machine by a 
double-ended lever connected by gearing with the frame-work of the driving 
wheel. Greatly to the annoyance of mankind and the terror of horse kind 
this unwieldy engine made its appearance in the streets of Paris about the 
year 1769, and was there 

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regarded as a public nuisance, until one day turning a corner near the 
Madeleine it came to the ground with a crash, was seized by the 
authorities, and is now one of the curiosities in the Conservatoire des 
Arts et Metiers. 

Even more ponderous was the engine constructed in 1784 by William Murdock, 
an engineer employed by the firm of Bolton and Watt. Its boiler rested on 
a frame in rear of the driving axles, the flue passing through it, the 
fire box beneath, and the cylinder above, the valve being worked by the 
walking beam. Of this there is a reproduction on a larger scale in the 
Baltimore and Ohio collection; but for what purpose it was built, except 
to demonstrate the possibility of running carriages by steam, does not 
appear. Certain it is that it could not be intended for practical use. 

Three of the Trevithick engines are reproduced, one of them being actually 
used about the year 1808 as a locomotive; and with it are sections of 
rails, short, rusty pieces of iron, and the stone ties which preceded 
those of wood. Then comes the steam dredge which Oliver Evans constructed 
a few years earlier near Philadelphia. Passing by other models, among them 
a Blenkinsop engine provided with a cog wheel, the famous Puffing Billy, 
and the first one patented in the United States, we come to Stephenson's 
Rocket, which has been a thousand times described. Not far away is the 
Stourbridge Lion, built in 1829, and the first used in the United States 
for locomotive purposes. This is of the grasshopper type, of which there 
are many specimens in the collection, all somewhat resembling a primitive 
fire-engine mounted on a flat car. In models or originals are many engines 
which have done good service in their time, among them the Traveller, the 
first freight engine of the Baltimore and Ohio road; the Mazeppa, the 
first with horizontal cylinders; the Hercules, the first with equalizing 
beams; the Peppersauce, the first to climb Mount Washington; and a Perkins 
engine built in 1863, and removed from active service to take its place in 
Transportation hall. All the improvements made within the last three score 
of years are included in this exhibit, which ends with a Royal Blue 
express train, at the head of which is one of the most powerful of 
compound engines, manufactured at the Baldwin Locomotive works. Here are 
shown progressively and in detail the various stages of development, how 
the first horizontal boiler replaced the vertical boiler, and the engine 
whose steam passed upward through the smokestack superseded the clumsy 
device in which a blower was used to aid combustion. There is also a 
collection of rails, from such as were laid without flanges more than half 
a century ago to the modern rail of Bessemer steel. Finally is shown in 
photographic form the railway machinery used in every quarter of the 
world. 

Adjoining the section occupied by the Baltimore and Ohio railroad is the 
main exhibit of the Pullman Palace Car company, in which the most 
attractive features are two complete exhibition trains, a limited and a 
day train. Both are of finished workmanship, representing in its highest 
form of development a purely American invention, one opening a new field 
of progress in which no tentative efforts had been made in other lands. 
And yet it may be said 

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that, like other valuable inventions, this was almost the result of an 
accident. Some thirty-five years ago, while travelling by night from 
Buffalo to Westfield, George M. Pullman lay awake, bethinking him how to 
convert the rude sleeping car then in use, into a comfortable dormitory on 
wheels. The idea grew upon him, and in due time he rented a workshop at 
Chicago, hired skilled mechanics, and applied himself in earnest to the 
task. The result was the car Pioneer, the first one built, and costing $18,
000, or more than four times as much as the best before constructed. 
Though at first encountering strong opposition, it gradually 
revolutionized existing theories of construction, for nowhere else could 
be found such a combination of strength and beauty, with minute 
elaboration of devices for ease and comfort. From this small beginning was 
developed the Pullman enterprise, with property valued in 1893 at $60,000,
000, and with more than 2,500 sleeping, parlor, and dining cars, carrying 
5,000,000 or 6,000,000 passengers a year over the 125,000 miles of 
railroad under contract with the company. 

In all the Transportation department there is no more handsome exhibit 
than the Pullman Columbian exhibition trains almost in the centre of the 
annex. At the head of the limited train is one of the most powerful of 
compound engines, named Columbus, from the Baldwin Locomotive works at 
Philadelphia. First is the baggage and smoking car Marchena, with bath-
room, barber's shop, writing-desk, and library. Next is the dining-car La 
Rabida, finished in the finest of vermilion wood imported from Central 
America, with windows of stained glass in delicate hues, seats elaborately 
carved, and kitchen which is a model of cleanliness and condensation of 
space. There are the sleeping car America and the compartment sleeping car 
Ferdinand, both marvels of comfort and decorative skill, the latter 
finished in Pompeiian red, and 

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satin wood, artistically carved and polished to a mirror-like brightness, 
each of its compartments a miniature boudoir, and with separate design and 
color scheme, as in ivory and gold, in olive green, in blue and satin 
wood, all with upholstery of silk brocade. The last is an observation car, 
named Isabella, a portion of which is furnished as a drawing-room, with 
large railed platform at its end. In this train it would almost seem that 
the perfection of comfort and convenience had been attained, many skillful 
devices, though small in themselves, contributing to the general effect. 
All the compartments are provided with toilet appliances, and with water, 
hot, cold, and iced. The electric lights are shaded with silken fringe; 
the entrance ways paved with mosaic, and vases placed on stands remain 
undisturbed by the motion of the train; so smoothly run these palace cars, 
the very embodiment of the luxury of modern travel. 

In the second train is a mail car of novel pattern, its walls finished 
with white enamel, with mail boxes of cherry, and all the appliances of 
railroad postal service. Next is the passenger coach 1893, with the 
softest of high-backed cushioned seats, the parlor car Maria, with its 
sumptuous appointments completing the railroad exhibit. All the cars are 
equipped with the Pullman vestibule, forming a solid yet sinuous train, 
under a single roof, and allowing the traveller to pass in comfort as in 
his own home, from sitting to dining or sleeping room. Here for the first 
time is shown the application of the vestibule system to the entire width 
of the cars, by extending the sides and enclosing the ends, with an 
original and ingenious arrangement of entrance doors, and with trap doors 
above the steps, whereby is avoided the exposure to wind and weather on 
ordinary cars with open platforms and projecting hoods. A still more 
important advantage is that it affords practical immunity from danger to 
passengers even in case of violent collision. 

An entirely new and conspicuous feature of these two trains, and one which 
attracted wide and favorable comment during the Exposition is the 
application of the vestibule to locomotive tenders, making it impossible 
for either the tender or the car next to it to be elevated to a position 
where one would telescope 

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into the other. By its use the locomotive is made a factor of safety in 
resisting shocks due to collision; and the train is made solidly 
continuous, practically ensuring the mail clerks, baggage and express men, 
and engine men, as well as the passengers, from injury in case of 
collision. 

In the Pullman group is also a set of standard six-wheel trucks, with 
street cars of various patterns, one of them an electric car with upper 
deck, such as are now in use at Washington. In the centre of the main 
building, fronting on the longitudinal nave, is a model of the workshops, 
stores, and dwellings of the town of Pullman, with its 12,000 inhabitants, 
more than half of whom are operatives actually employed at the works. Of 
these, further mention is made under the heading of World's Fair 
Miscellany. 

South of the annex is the pavilion of the New York Central company, a 
separate edifice in the form of a triumphal arch connecting two side 
structures, one of them furnished as a waiting room, its walls hung with 
scenic paintings of landscape views from its lines of route, and the other 
serving as an office, where information is furnished as to the company's 
operations and exhibits. In the court between, with its flooring of 
mosaic, is a model of the Empire State express engine, 999, the original 
of which is stationed on tracks outside the building. For this locomotive, 
which is said to be the fastest in the world, such impossible rates of 
speed have been claimed as a mile in 32 seconds or 112 miles to the hour. 
The 999, built 

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for the occasion at the Schenectady Locomotive works, is an eight-wheel 
engine, long-limbed as a race-horse, with seven-foot driving-wheels, and 
of plain but handsome appearance. Beneath its huge boiler, with its 
heating surface of 1,700 square feet, there is room for a tall man to 
stand upright, while the diminutive smoke-stack is on a level with the 
curved roof which shelters the engineer. On the tender an inscription 
indicates the service for which it is destined, the engine and tender 
weighing together more than 100 tons, and yet running as smoothly as a 
drawing room coach. The accompanying train consists of Wagner vestibuled 
cars, and includes drawing room, sleeping, dining, and smoking coaches, 
most of them decorated in Louis Quatorze style, with elaborate carvings 
and color scheme of gold, yellow, and pale green. 

In contrast with this steam leviathan and its train of palace cars, stands 
at its side a reproduction of the De Witt Clinton locomotive, with its 
ramshackle cars, the former having fallen to pieces years ago, though some 
of the fragments were pieced together and the engine reconstructed from 
the original specifications. For the coaches the following is a portion of 
a contract, dated the 23d of April, 1831: "To the commissioners of the 
Mohawk and Hudson Railroad company, Sirs: - I propose and agree to furnish 
for said railroad company six coach tops, to be finished and hung in the 
style of workmanship generally adopted in Albany and Troy for post 
coaches; a baggage rack and a boot to be hung at each end; the length of 
coach body to be 7 feet and 4 inches, 5 feet wide in the centre and 3 feet 
8 inches between the jacks; to have three inside seats, the back to the 
end seats to be stuffed with moss and all the seats to be stuffed with 
hair. The whole to be completed 

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as aforesaid for the sum of $310 each. It is understood that the above 
coaches are not to be provided with lamps or mud leathers." 

Here in truth we have the climax and anti-climax of railroad travel, in 
the palace cars of the Empire State express, costing perhaps $30,000 
apiece, and these primitive coaches of three score years ago, costing 
about one hundredth part of that sum, with their moss-stuffed seats, and 
without lamps or "mud leathers." As to the engine there is nothing 
whereunto we can liken it, unless it be to an old fashioned machine that 
has stood in the rain since the days of the colonial era. Its boiler is 
hump backed; its tender filled with water barrels, and its overgrown smoke-
stack is without spark-arrester, cinders falling in showers on the 
passengers, who protected themselves with umbrellas, and at times used 
their coats to extinguish incipient fires. Thus did the good citizens of 
New York, including Erastus Corning, Governor Yates, and the high 
constable of the state travel on the pioneer trip from Albany to 
Schenectady on the 9th of August, 1831, the conductor seated in rear of 
the tender, and giving the signal to start by blowing a large tin horn. It 
may have been an interesting but it certainly was not a comfortable 
excursion; for we learn that the tops of the passengers' umbrellas were 
burned through, and that each one seized his neighbor's clothes to 
extinguish the brands that came from the pitch pine fuel, while, when a 
stop was made for water, the constant jerking caused by the slack of the 
cars was relieved by wedging rails between them and tying them fast with 
packing twine. 

Near the pavilion of the New York Central, the Pennsylvania Railroad 
company erected a tasteful edifice of its own, in the form of a passenger 
station, behind which a track was laid with standard rails, and a signal 
tower and foot bridge overhead. Here also was displayed a historic and 
technical collection, but relating only to lines which have been 
associated with or merged in its system, showing in models, relief maps, 
relics, and illustrations in graphic 

Page 558

art, the results achieved by this organization, in which were 
consolidated, between 1846 and 1892 the interests of more than 200 
corporations. At either side of the main entrance-way are depictured on 
panels in relief primitive and modern methods of travel and transportation 
for periods extending from 1492 to 1892. There are relief maps of termini 
and of the company's former and present lines, with relief models of Horse 
Shoe curve, and of cars, locomotives, and canal-boats. A perspective map, 
33 feet long, shows the exact location of every train in its system at six 
o'clock in the evening of Columbus day, the 21st day of October 1892. A 
chart explains some of the working of the organization, and impressions 
from seals the gradual accretion of its corporate interests. 

Among the models, most of them about one tenth of the actual size, are a 
stage coach that ran between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia nearly 70 years 
ago, and a Conestoga wagon such as was used before the railroad era for 
eastward travel and transport to the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Of 
locomotives there are among others models of the one which John Stevens 
built at Hoboken in 1825, and of the Stockton and Darlington engine No. 1, 
imported from England in 1826 by William Strickland, and loaned for the 
occasion by the Franklin institute of Philadelphia. There is the historic 
John Bull, its model made from the original drawings sent with the engine 
from Stephenson's works. After making the trip from New York to Chicago in 
somewhat less than a week, the engine itself with its two old-fashioned 
cars was installed in the yards at the terminal station near the 
Administration building, thus reproducing the first train drawn by a 
locomotive in New Jersey, the date being the 12th of November, 1831. There 
is also a rack-rail locomotive constructed for the Madison and 
Indianapolis railroad, near which are the Herald, which did service on the 
Baltimore and Susquehanna road in 1831, and the George Washington, built 
in 1835, the first to ascend a heavy grade. 

Page 559

Among the models of passenger and freight cars are two stage-body coaches, 
originally drawn by horse power, and which, with the engine Lancaster, 
formed the first train run on the Pennsylvania State railroad in 1834. 
There is one that plied in the same year between the business quarter of 
Philadelphia and the ferry across the Schuylkill river. To this date also 
belongs the first car with shingled gable roof, and with straight-backed 
seats, in which none but a quaker could sit. Of freight cars there is one 
which did service in 1836, and there is a baggage car built in 1849, the 
baggage being placed in wheeled crates and carried across ferries without 
removal. Finally, there are the original cars, built specially for the 
purpose, by which the Krupp guns were hauled to Jackson park, with models 
of the guns upon them. 

Safety appliances are shown, with train signals, lanterns, and color-blind 
tests. There are lay figures of trainmen, conductors, brakemen, and other 
employees in uniform. There are models of tracks laid between 1831 and 
1857. There are tug-boats, a ferry boat, lighter, and barge, whose 
achievements date from 1839 to 1892. There is hoisting machinery by which 
a 3,000 ton vessel can be loaded in four hours, and there is a model of 
the first railroad bridge constructed in Pennsylvania, with spans of 
timber nearly 1,000 feet in length. 

In cases and frames is a large museum of railroad relics and curiosities, 
including more than 1,000 specimens. Among them are rails and chairs laid 
in 1833; the whistle used by a driver on the old state road in 1832, when 
cars were run by horse-power; an old copper penny that helped to purchase 
the first ticket sold in the same year by the Camden and Amboy railroad; 
the ticket punch which a conductor used in 1849; a baggage check of 
similar date; a conductor's badge and tariff book of 1853, and the first 
guide book published by the Pennsylvania railroad in 1855. There are the 
wood-burning stoves used in passenger cars, the old fashioned signal 
lanterns, and the bells which for nearly half a century announced the 
arrival and departure of trains and steamers. Railroad literature is 
freely displayed, with reports, regulations, pamphlets, instructions, 
payrolls, schedules, train-orders, way-bills, and advertisements, among 
the last a poster of 1792, advertising the "New Line Industry" by stage 
and sail boat from Paules Hook, now Jersey City, to Philadelphia. A so-
called blank African ticket, issued in 1861, guarantees "that the person 
of color mentioned below is free, or is the slave of the party designated, 
and he has the permission of the said owner or owners to travel in the 
cars." 

A collection of the old views on Pennsylvania lines dates from 1832 to 
1892. Among them is shown the wooden bridge built over the Schuylkill 
river in 1804, and used by vehicles, foot passengers, and later by 
railroads until its destruction by fire in 1875. On the Old Portage 
railroad is a train of freight cars being drawn up an incline by cable, 
behind it a "buck" or safety car, and at the summit an engine house and 
hitching shed. A stage coach is changing horses at a Pennsylvania tavern 
in 1825, and here again, are John Bull, and the old 

Page 560

fashioned Conestoga wagons, with coaches, canal boats, and packets. There 
are locomotives of many patterns and dates, and the letters patent signed 
by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren in 1831, granting exclusive rights 
for "a new and useful improvement in locomotive carriages and rails 
adapted thereto." The railroad riots at Pittsburgh in 1877 are depictured 
in graphic art, as also is the devastation wrought by the Johnstown flood 
in 1889. In drawings, photographs, and other forms are illustrated 
engineering work, construction, and maintenance, with bridges of iron, 
wood, and stone; stations, tunnels, cuts, canals, and floating equipment. 
In addition to this elaborate display the company occupies a small section 
in the annex of the Transportation building, where are passenger, 
refrigerator, and inspection cars of improved and recent pattern. 

In an adjacent section the Old Colony railroad exhibits the first 
locomotive built for its line in 1858, and a passenger coach that ran in 
1835 between Boston and Providence, modelled after the stage coaches of 
the time, hung on braces, and resting on a four-wheel truck. In contrast 
with it is one of the last engines and passenger cars constructed for the 
company. 

By other railroad companies historic engines have been placed on 
exposition, the Illinois Central for instance installing near the exhibit 
of the Pennsylvania company the Mississippi, built in England in 1836 for 
the Natchez and Mississippi line, now incorporated with its system. After 
doing service on several lines, in 1868 it was carried away by a flood, 
and after lying buried for ten years under a mass of debris was exhumed 
and repaired for further service. It is an odd-looking relic, and has been 
aptly compared to a boy's penknife which has several times been fitted 
with new blades and handle. On timbers beside it are specimens of the 
strap rails used on the Natchez and Hamburg line, on which this locomotive 
ran between 1836 and 1838. 

Near the German section, in the north of the annex, the Chicago and North 
Western has on exhibition the Pioneer, so named as the first engine used 
on a Chicago road, one shipped by way of the lakes nearly half a century 
ago, when no railroad ran eastward from the midcontinent metropolis. Built 
in Philadelphia, in 1836, for the Utica and Schenectady line, a few years 
later it was purchased for the Galena and Chicago Union railway, then in 
course of construction. Here also is one of the quaintest of specimens, 
its smoke stack towering above the diminutive boiler and cylinders, with a 
single pair of driving wheels, and all its apparatus of most primitive 
pattern. Still another historic locomotive is the General, exhibited by 
the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis railroad, by whose manager it was 
rescued from a limbo of refuse not far from the spot where it was captured 
by a band of federal raiders in April 1862. Of this incident the story is 
briefly told under the heading of World's Fair Miscellany. 

Of modern specimens displayed in the American sections of the 
Transportation department, aside from those already 

Page 561

mentioned, the largest collection is from the Baldwin Locomotive works at 
Philadelphia, consisting of fifteen engines adapted to all varieties of 
service, including broad and narrow gauge, simple expansion, and compound 
locomotives, with such as are used on mines and plantations. The Brooks 
Locomotive works of Dunkirk, the Schenectady and the Pittsburgh works, are 
also well represented, the Schenectady works having one of the largest 
engines in the annex. The Cooke Locomotive and Machine company, of 
Paterson, New Jersey, sends a freight and a passenger engine; from Lima 
works in Ohio come a logging engine and car; the Rhode Island works at 
Providence, and the Rogers works at Paterson, New Jersey, have each three 
engines on exhibition, and from the Richmond works is a locomotive of 
finished workmanship. Finally, the H. K. Porter and company's works at 
Pittsburgh show some of the smallest engines used for special purposes, 
but equipped with all modern appliances. 

Among foreign participants Great Britain occupies a prominent section in 
the annex, facing that of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. Though somewhat 
limited, the display is of historic as well as of practical interest, for 
England is the mother of railroads, and by her have been furnished, almost 
from Stephenson's days, the types for many European systems. Here one may 
study a full-sized model of the Rocket, which on a September day of 1825 
dragged between Stockton and Darlington a heterogeneous procession of 
vehicles, from a hucksters' wagon to a family coach. As all the world 
knows, it was driven by the Scotch engineer who, beginning lie as a 
cowherd and at eighteen unable to read or write, gave to the world an 
invention which revolutionized its commercial and industrial conditions. 
Though conveying passengers from Stockton to Darlington at the rate of one 
shilling a head, the line was mainly used for carrying minerals and 
merchandise, at once reducing the freight on the former by more than 70 
percent, and on the latter by 90 percent. Such was a foretaste of the 
great work which railroads were destined to accomplish. 

On the completion of the Liverpool and Manchester line in 1829, it became 
apparent that ere long a transformation would be wrought in methods of 
travel and transport. Others followed, slowly at first, and then in more 
rapid succession, so that before the middle of the century the foundation 
had been laid of all the great trunk lines interlacing the British isles. 
In 1853 there were nearly 8,000 miles in operation; in 1873 this 

Page 562

mileage had been doubled, and at the close of 1893, more than 20,000 miles 
were open, railroad construction having almost reached its limit as it 
would seem, for there were few more lines to build, or few that would pay 
to build. The entire capital invested in these enterprises is not far 
short of $5,000,000,000, the gross revenue from which exceeds $400,000,
000, or at the rate of $20,000 a mile, while in the United States, though 
with nearly thrice the total of earnings, the average is less than $8,000 
a mile. 

A feature in British as compared with American railroads is their enormous 
cost, amounting with less than one eighth of the mileage to more than one 
half of the outlay incurred by the latter. This is due in part to the 
substantial character of English road-beds, but more to the expenditure 
for right of way, much of it passing through towns and cities, or thickly 
populated regions, and purchased at fabulous prices. The metropolitan 
railway, for instance, built partially underground, cost at the rate of $2,
500,000 a mile, and the North London, constructed mainly on arches, $1,635,
000 a mile. Yet both these lines are paying properties, the latter 
requiring nearly 1,000 passenger coaches and several hundred freight cars 
for its dozen miles of track. In the United States railroads have been 
built within recent years at a cost of $15,000 a mile, while for the most 
expensive sections of the Central Pacific, over and through the Sierra 
Nevada, the outlay was not more than five percent on ordinary stock 
against less than two percent in the United States. Another contrast is in 
the proportion of employees, with twenty men to each mile of British road 
against five in the United States. To the insufficiency of their working 
force is mainly due the large number of casualties on American lines, 
amounting to nearly 10,000 a year, more men being killed in 1893 than met 
their fate in the federal ranks during the three days' struggle at 
Gettysburg. 

In the Queen Empress with its train of cars, exhibited by the London and 
North Western company, we have the most perfect types of rolling stocks 
developed by British ingenuity. While there are larger and more powerful 
locomotives in the American section, there are none of more handsome 
appearance and more elaborate finish. Not only are the iron and steel 
polished to a mirror-like brightness, but the painted portions resemble 
the finest cabinet work, even the pipes of the smoke box being varnished, 
while the tube plate is of snowy whiteness. The engine itself is of a blue 
color, with stripes of red and edgings of green. Its weight is about 52 
tons, and a novelty in its construction is that he high-pressure cylinders 
are placed in front of the forward driving wheels, with corresponding 
length of piston rods. There are more than 150 boiler tubes, with a total 
heating surface of some 1,350 square feet, and a steam pressure of 175 
pounds to the inch. 

The sleeping car contrasts somewhat sharply with those of American build, 
affording almost the privacy of a home, with broad, cushioned seat 
provided with arm rests and baggage rack for every passenger, the sleeping 
berths with wardrobes underneath, and each with separate lavatory and 
electric communication. In the centre of the car, and connected by a side 
aisle with either end, is a smoking room, finished in walnut and 

Page 563

satin wood, with easy chairs and folding tables. The composite car 
contains first, second, and third class compartments, the principal 
difference being as to finish, for all are well upholstered and 
comfortably furnished. Among other exhibits by the London and North 
Western are models, signal apparatus, and scenic views along its line of 
route, the models including reproductions of the Rocket, and of a 
Trevithick engine, the first to run on a trainway between Merthyr and 
Cardiff, some ninety years ago. 

The Great Western Railway company has on exhibition the Lord of the Isles, 
built for broad gauge lines, and partly to show their superiority over 
those of narrow guage. This is a type of the first express engine ever 
constructed, others having been used for nearly half a century, and then 
retired only on account of a change in the standard guage. From this 
company are specimens of the track used many years ago, one of the rails 
weighing only 62 pound to the yard, but laid on longitudinal sleepers and 
with continuous supports, enabling it to carry as much weight as the 
modern rail by which it was superseded, mainly because of the lower price 
of iron and the higher cost of timber. There are also photographic views 
and portraits, among them 

Page 564

one of Brunel, the artificer of the Great Eastern, and in 1825 resident 
engineer of the Thames tunnel. 

By the London firm of Westwood and Winby is exhibited the locomotive James 
Toleman, built for handling fast and heavy trains. In the mechanism of 
this engine there are special contrivances for combining speed and power, 
the driving wheels for instance having separate cylinders, with long 
piston rod for the transmission of power. The boiler is of unusual size, 
with a total heating surface, including fire box, of 2,000 square feet, 
and narrow enough in horizontal diameter to be placed between the driving 
wheels. The bearings are large, the connections strong, and the entire 
engine is a handsome specimen of workmanship, but with a complication of 
parts that must render difficult the task of keeping it in order. From Sir 
John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker are fine models of the bridge across 
the Forth, and from other companies are models and photographs of rolling 
stock, buildings, equipments, and the scenery along their lines of route. 

Side by side with the exhibition train of the London and North Western is 
a full standard train of the Canadian Pacific railway, built at its works 
in Montreal, and showing the actual service of the company, with the 
accommodation furnished to passengers. At its head is a compound engine 
weighing 106 tons, with steel boiler carrying a pressure of 180 pounds to 
the inch. As with most of the steam leviathans housed in the annex, it is 
plainly finished, and of sombre hue, the tender painted black, with red 
facing and gold bordered panel. The baggage car is of the usual type 
adopted by the company, strong and solid, as are all the rest. Next to it 
is a second class sleeper, with leather covered seats arranged at night as 
berths as on the Pullman cars. Then comes a first class day coach, 
upholstered in wine-colored plush, and finished in Honduras mahogany, 
elaborately carved and with tasteful panellings. Arches resting on columns 
divide the car into sections without obstructing the view, and give to it 
a massive appearance. At either end is a smoking room, of which only the 
one in rear of the car is used when the train is running. 

In the dining car, whose floor is heavily carpeted, are ten tables, with 
carved bronze alcoves, their seats covered with morocco leather, and with 
a rounded pillar at the back and end of each. The sideboard is an 
elaborate piece of furniture, rounded at the base, with plate glass 
panels, its handsomely carved octagonal top resting on massive columns. 
The last car is a first class sleeper, with ornate and elegant finish, its 
main body divided into eight sections, and at one end are state rooms with 
lining and curtains of richly flowered silk, connected with which is a 
toilet room with plate glass mirrors. The cars can be lighted either by 
gas or electricity, and are heated by steam from the engine. In maps is 
described the company's route around the world, and in graphic art is 
reproduced some of the finest scenery on this the most picturesque of 
American 

Page 565

railroad lines. From the bureau of public roads are also maps and 
photographs of roadways, bridges, and tunnels, and from private exhibitors 
collections of railway supplies. 

Adjoining the British section on the northwest, New South Wales has 
condensed much that is of interest within a limited space. The hansom 
cabs, with their ingenious sliding doors, are specimens of excellent 
workmanship, and a collection of photographs gives the stranger to 
Australian enterprise a most favorable impression of the railway stations 
of Sydney, Albury, Newcastle, and other centres of the system, as well as 
of its bridges and rolling stock. A large model of the Zigzag railway 
shows the line winding around and climbing the sides of the Blue 
mountains, one of the remarkable engineering feats of modern times. Near 
by are models of the steamships Austral and Glasgow, and in the far end of 
the section are reproduced the Sutherland dry docks at Sydney, among the 
most extensive in the world. At the other side of the annex is a large 
pile of railway sleepers, made of iron bark wood, many of which ahve done 
service for nearly a quarter of a century. 

Germany occupies a liberal space at the southern end of the annex, where 
are well represented the railway interests of the empire. The first of the 
German lines was completed in 1835, and of Prussian lines in 1839; but 
while the Prussian government encouraged railway development, and a decade 
later undertook the construction of railways of its own, it was not until 
recent years that her system was fully developed. In 1879 was authorized 
the purchase of private lines by the state, which in 1885 owned nearly all 
of the 14,000 miles of roadway. In 1892 there was double that mileage in 
operation, with 14,300 locomotives, 27,000 passenger, and 300,000 freight 
and baggage cars, the total earnings amounting to $480,000,000, and the 
net earnings to 43 percent of that sum; but in which, as in other 
countries, fixed charges as interest on bonds are not included. 

First among the German exhibits may be mentioned that of the Royal 
Prussian state railway administration, at Berlin, consisting mainly of 
locomotives and passenger and freight cars manufactured in the principal 
railroad works of the empire. The first include compound freight engine 
and tender from the Elbing shops of F. Schichau, and a locomotive with 
five-ton axle pressure from Henschel and son of Cassel. Among the rolling 
stock are three and four truck railway carriages, and a coal car with iron 
body, the last from a Cologne-Deutz firm. 

By Siemens and Halske of Berlin and Chicago are displayed all kinds of 
apparatus used for signalling, and for the operation and interlocking of 
railroad switches. Among them are two illustrations of their electromanual 
system of block signalling, one adapted to German and the other to 
American lines, the principal features being the same in each, as with 
other apparatus, some of which has been in continuous service for many 
years. All the signals are controlled by the same instrument, and by an 
ingenious contrivance the electric circuit is connected with each of the 
rails, preventing the operator from unlocking the signal to the rear, 

Page 567

and thus avoiding a source of danger in manual block systems. And so with 
the track signal, which can be placed at any distance in advance of the 
signal tower, and has doubtless prevented many a collision. The same 
company exhibits an electric automatic system of block signals, and in 
Machinery hall has one of the most elaborate collections in the German 
department. 

From the museum of Permanent Way, at Osnabruck, is a collection gathered 
from every quarter of the world, showing the roadways of many nations and 
periods, arranged chronologically and in groups. First is a specimen of 
the plank road named by Tacitus Pontes longi, laid by Domitius about the 
year five B.C., as a portion of a Roman military road across a swamp near 
osnabruck, and excavated in 1892 from its dense overgrowth of moss. Next 
is a wooden tramway, such as is still used in remote and sparsely settled 
regions. Then there are exhibits of stone, wood, and iron sleepers and 
rails, either as originals or reproductions, from the track on which 
Richard Trevithick experimented in 1804 to that which was laid in 1890 for 
Prussian state railways. There are self-bearing rails without sleepers and 
joltless permanent way of various kinds, operated at small expense, with 
other appliances for comfort and safety, illustrating many phases of 
construction both as to economy and technique. 

In a superbly executed model is reproduced the railway station at Cologne, 
one of the finest specimens of railroad architecture in the world, 80 feet 
high, and with a central span of more than 200 feet. Near the northern 
portal of the Transportation building are sets of wheels for locomotives 
and cars, pressed castings and welded iron plates, with models of public 
and other works constructed by a Bergbau company, which, as it states, 
employes 7,600 men in the production of 250,000 tons a year of 
manufactured iron and steel. 

In France railroad development has been largely aided by the state, which 
furnished one-half the cost of the earlier lines constructed, equipped, 
and worked by private enterprise. In the larger corporations were for the 
most part absorbed the local roads afterward built under government 
patronage, and in 1884 a contract was made with the six great companies 
for 7,000 miles of roadway in addition to the 17,000 miles then in 
operation, to be built at their own expense and the money ultimately 
refunded by the state, which meanwhile guaranteed a fair dividend to 
stockholders. These were not all completed, as it would seem, in 1891, 
when the total length of track was somewhat less than 20,000 miles. From 
all French railways the revenue for that year was stated at about $230,00,
000, of which nearly one half was net income; for in France railroads are 
managed with the closest economy. 

In the French section, adjoining the main portal of Transportation hall, 
there are no such monster locomotives as are exhibited in the American and 
British departments. Of the four engines the average weight does not 
exceed 45 tons, and the average cost about $15,000. Of rolling stock the 
only specimen is a neat, second class coach, used for local and suburban 
traffic, with seats across the body of 

Page 568

the car and a stairway leading to the roof. The Northern and Western 
railways of France have special sections in which the extent of their 
systems is explained, as also their facilities for handling freight and 
passenger traffic. The latter has a model of the St. Lazare station at 
Paris, showing the passenger depot, the long train sheds and freight 
houses, the depressed tracks, and the city streets which traverse the area 
partially occupied by the company's buildings and lines. Elsewhere a 
manufacturer of railway supplies advertises his wares in a monumental pile 
of axles tires and wheels. 

Austria-Hungary with her 17,000 miles of railroad is represented in the 
Transportation building only by photographs of freight and passenger cars, 
and a few exhibits of vehicles. On the northern walls of this building is 
a gallery of paintings, with relief maps illustrating the scenery and 
topographical peculiarities along the line of the St. Gothard railway, the 
engineering link connecting the Swiss and Italian lakes and the railway 
systems of northern Europe with those of the south. Here are still traces 
of the havoc wrought by the landslide from Rossberg mountain, which more 
than eighty years ago crushed entire villages like egg shells. Along the 
shores of Uri lake, the southeasterly arm of Lucerne, the windings of the 
railway may be partially traced, losing itself in mountain tunnels, the 
rocks and peaks becoming more and more forbidding, and the valley 
narrowing to a gorge. Here also is shown Mount Bristen, from which the 
train emerges upon the bridge which spans the dizzy heights of Maderan 
valley. Then follows a series of seventeen tunnels, three of them 
circular, and the northern entrance to the great St. Gothard is reached. A 
quarter of a mile above it is a little village, and at twice that 
altitude, a miniature mountain lake. The main tunnel runs through the 
mountains for a distance of nine miles, and the entire railway, which for 
nearly a dozen years has traversed the barrier of snow peaks dividing 
central Europe from northern Italy, is more than 100 miles in length, the 
56 tunnels covering about one third of the total distance. There are also 
illustrations of the plans adopted by the engineers, showing how valley 
levels were followed, wherever possible, in the construction of the great 
work. Models made by a professor of the Federal polytechnic at Zurich are 
works of art in themselves, the ideas of relative depression and elevation 
being conveyed in gradations of color as well as in form, blue for the 
valleys, and orange for the hills and mountains. 

Entering the Mexican section near the United States exhibit of vehicles, 
we are confronted with the typical horseman of our sister republic, with 
wide sombrero and mounted on a profusely caparisoned steed. Near by are 
specimens of saddlery and wagon 

Page 569

work, both of skillful execution. In one of the corners is a replica of 
the so-called stone sails near the summit of the hill of Guadalupe, in the 
neighborhood of which stands the temple of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whither, 
as the legend runs, a party of shipwrecked sailors, in fulfillment of a 
vow, bore the foremast of their ship, planting the transformed emblem of 
their devotion where now it stands. Of this curiosity there is an exact 
reproduction by the Mexican National railroad, except that it is some 
twenty feet lower than the original. The company's office is decorated 
with ancient pottery, casts of Mexican gods, and figures exhumed from the 
sculptured ruins of Aztec and Toltec civilizations. The Mexican Central 
has its headquarters in another corner of the section, and in a separate 
chamber, in the form of a miniature museum, shows in maps its lines of 
route. Along the walls are tiny painted figures of water-carriers, and 
other agents and agencies of transportation, with objects that have no 
connection therewith, as the kitchen of a peon's home, a convivial lover 
embracing his sweetheart, and a drunken husband arraigned before a Mexican 
justice. 

Southeast of the central court is a large area in which our manufactures 
display the multitude of articles classified as railway supplies, the 
range varying from such as are required for a passenger coach to the 
outfit of a railroad depot. From various establishments are such 
specialties as seats of wood, rattan, and metal for cars and stations, 
with folding beds, ceilings, panels, ornamental trimmings, and lighting 
apparatus. Of the two last there is a creditable display by the Adams and 
Westlake company, of Chicago, in a handsome pavilion whose decorations are 
mainly composed of the bronze, brass, and white metal trimmings now 
largely used for cars of elaborate workmanship. There is also a complete 
collection of headlights, signal lamps, and lanterns. Near by is the large 
model of the city of Pullman, mentioned in connection with the railroad 
exhibit of the Palace Car company, and adjoining this the publishing firm 
of Rand, McNally and company has a specimen ticket office, which is a 
bureau of information as well as an advertisement of the special classes 
of goods that the house supplies, as railway maps, tickets, punches, 
cases, and baggage checks. Upon the outer wall of this structure, which is 
shared with the Pullman company, is a large map of the United States, 
showing its complicated railway systems, and beside it the electrotype 
from which it was printed. 

In the section devoted to railway supplies, several bridge companies 
exhibit models and drawings of the structures which they have built, among 
them being a reproduction of the bridge thrown across the Mississippi 

Page 570

River at the city of Memphis, the only one below the mouth of the Ohio 
river. Opposite is a finely constructed model of the bridge over the firth 
of Forth, the pride of British engineers. In the western gallery a 
prominent engineer traces in a series of drawings the evolution of the 
American bridge. 

Under the group of railway supplies are classed the exhibits of air brakes 
of the many patterns now in use. The largest collection is that of the 
Westinghouse Air Brake company, which has a brilliantly lighted pavilion 
and a liberal space in which to display in working order its numerous 
specimens. It has also a train of cars, supplied with the latest 
apparatus, and furnished with compressed air pumped from Machinery hall, 
that the brakes may be seen in actual operation. Several companies have 
special apparatus for heating and lighting cars, the entire side of a long 
aisle in the annex being occupied with this class of exhibits. Two New 
York establishments make the most extensive showing, one of them 
illustrating not only its specialties for heating by steam but what is 
known as the Pintsch method of lighting by gas. 

Among the miscellaneous features of the railroad exhibit there are few 
more attractive than that of snow ploughs. Of these there are several 
specimens within and outside the annex, the most noteworthy being the 
rotary snow plow used by the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe company. It 
consists of a ponderous engine, with huge automatic reversible knives and 
hollow cone-shaped scoops; and one may well believe that the heaviest 
snowdrifts in the canons of the Rocky mountains cannot long resist its 
onslaught. It has been thoroughly tested, and in a collection of 
photographs the plough is shown battling its way at various points through 
towering masses of snow. 

Bicycle electric cars are among the new inventions exhibited in the 
railroad department. In some of them the wheel is so large as to protrude 
through the roof of the car; in others there is a smaller central and 
vertical wheel, with two which run horizontally upon side tracks. The 
efforts to avoid friction, both of atmosphere and rail, are illustrated by 
several mechanisms. One of the devices is a cigar-shaped car; and there 
are at least two electric railways over which it is proposed to run trains 
suspended from the rails, rather than resting upon them. Through one of 
the contrivances it is claimed that a speed may safely be developed of 200 
mile an hour, the central idea being the action of a bevelled drive wheel 
against a bevelled rail. On the top of the supporting trusses is a steel 
trough, sloping upward and outward from the centre, in which travel the 
truck and antifriction wheels whence the car is suspended. The invention 
has been tested on a small scale, and even with imperfect roadway and 
electric motor it is said that a speed of over 40 miles an hour has been 
attained. 

Although the exhibits of railroads proper completely dwarf those of the 
street car and minor lines, much is to be seen and learned by an 
examination of the latter groups; for here are displayed the latest 
patents in seats, stoves, wheels, switches, and all other appliances. 
Electric motors and the furnishings of electric cars are largely 
represented, together with all kinds of cable systems. In the latter 
direction San Francisco is prominent, A. S. Haliddie of that city, the 
inventor and builder of the first cable road, producing the original dummy 
used on a steep hill grade in August, 1873. 

Page 571

In a section of the roadway are also revealed the workings of the grip and 
pulleys, and adjoining is a collection of grips used by various cable 
lines throughout the country, showing difference in style and mechanism. A 
California company, which manufactures wire cables, has a patent rope-way 
in operation, one devised for the transportation of ore over the 
mountains, and a Chicago establishments exhibits a motor operated by 
liquid ammonia supplied by stationary plants. 

In the division of vehicles are included all the parts of which they are 
composed, and all appliances used for animals employed in travel and 
transportation, together with everything that tends to illustrate the 
development of this branch of locomotion from remote ages and from distant 
lands. First let us pass in review the collective exhibits of the United 
States and Great Britain, with the historical specimens scattered among 
their sections, for here is the largest and choicest assortment of 
materials, far exceeding in interest those of other participating nations. 

Nearly three acres of floor space in the northern portions of the main 
building and annex are occupied by vehicles exhibited by manufacturers in 
the United States. Generally speaking, light pleasure carriages, as pony 
carts, surreys, phaetons, rockaways, and coupes, with speeding wagons, 
sulkies, and trotting sleighs are found in the main hall, and in the annex 
are grouped the rougher and more cumbersome specimens, as trucks, farm and 
lumber wagons, street sprinklers, and such as are used by beer, coal, 
express, and ice companies. In the latter are also the delivery wagons of 
the grocer and dry-goods merchant, wheelbarrows, hand-carts, garbage and 
milk wagons, and various devices for dumping heavy loads. 

In each of these sections, whose dividing lines are not distinctly drawn, 
are costly hearses, noticeable alike for artistic design and finished 
workmanship. A so-called state hearse, made by the Crane and Breed 
manufacturing company, of Cincinnati, and covered with figures of cherubim 
and seraphim, was designed by a woman, and is valued at $12,000. In 
another from the works of James Cunningham and son, of Rochester, is 
imitated the style of the Italian renaissance, with symmetrical dome, 
elaborately fashioned lamps, and body composed in part of bevelled glass, 
the highly polished portions relieved by those of more sombre finish. The 
same firm has also a 

Page 572

Columbian coach, its body decorated in various colors, with trimmings of 
black, orange, satin, and gold lace. A New York manufacturer shows a 
sleigh in the form of a delicately tinted shell, resting upon a bed of sea-
weed supported on the back of four dolphins. The front of the sleigh is in 
the form of a sea dragon, the coloring throughout being harmonious and 
artistic. Nearly a score of carriage manufacturers Amesbury, 
Massachusetts, present a large and varied collective exhibit, including 
many styles of buggies, wagonettes, phaetons, and rockaways, with a 
remarkably handsome specimen of a tally-ho coach. Studebaker brothers, 
whose factory is in South Bend, Indiana, and their salesrooms in Chicago, 
have an elaborate display, ranging from a light speeding wagon and a 
finely carved victoria to a massive four-in-hand. The Columbus Buggy 
company, of Ohio, also demonstrates the pleasing effects which may be 
produced by factory work, and adds to the interest of the entire exhibit 
by contributing to the museum of curios a typical Mexican ox-cart, its 
body and wheels made of huge timbers, and the state carriage of President 
Polk, built at Yorktown, New York, half a century ago. 

A dozen or more of vehicles, of various nations and times, are ranged 
along the eastern and northern walls of the section now being described. 
First comes the Mexican litera, a kind of sedan chair, but with handles 
fastened to mules instead of to men, used for the conveyance of women over 
mountain roads. Next are the colonial carriage of 176, and one of somewhat 
later date, used by a substantial citizen of Wilmington, Delaware, close 
to which is the pert, light sulky in which Nancy Hanks broke the world's 
record. In contrast with this feather-weight vehicle is the four-in-hand 
drag which flanks it, made by a London factory for the prince of Wales. 
Beyond is an antique Vermont sleigh of the last century, and a quaint 
wagon, more than 100 years old, in which rode Nancy Standish Wells, of 
Wetherell, Connecticut, a descendant of Captain Miles Standish. Almost 
touching the latter are the handles of a Japanese jinrikisha, and not far 
away the lumbering ox-cart of Mexico, the family coach of President Polk - 
its cushions falling to pieces and its veneering much the worse for wear - 
and the more modern carriage of Daniel Webster. In this vicinity also is 
the Spanish volante, with its single pair of cumbersome wheels, the horses 
driven neither tandem nor abreast, but in a fashion between the two. 

Passing into the annex, where again the Studebaker company is represented, 
we find a large collection of farmers' wagons, especially from Wisconsin, 
Illinois, and Kentucky factories. 

Page 573

Among other specimens of artistic workmanship is an ice wagon from a 
Philadelphia company, with historic scenes depicted on its panels, and a 
piano van from the same city, its body divided into diamond-shaped 
sections and painted in tasteful coloring. 

On the ground floor is a small but choice display of British vehicles and 
their accessories, the main interest centring in the collections of two 
London firms. One of them has an assortment of drags, victorias, mail-
phaetons, a rustic cart, and a canoe-shaped landau. In the state-coach 
used by the lord mayors of London, the other firm presents an attractive 
exhibit, as is shown by the crowds which surrounded it. The gold-fringed 
hammer cloth, the golden lamps, the body of blue bearing the royal crest, 
and the interior furnishings of heavy, blue damask, with trimmings of blue 
and gold, give to it the gorgeous and fantastic appearance which helps to 
make the lord mayor's show the laughing-stock of the British metropolis. 

Canada has be a slender exhibit of vehicles in her section north of the 
British display; yet one that includes nearly every description of 
conveyance used on land or stream, from heavy farm wagons to light 
carriages and phaetons, with carriage springs and hardware, bicycles, 
skates, and sleighs in many styles. Of the last there is an interesting 
collection, as might be expected from a country where for three months in 
the year sleighs are almost the only means of travel and transportation. 
Among them is a model of the sleigh presented by the women of Canada to 
the duke of York and the Princess May. It is a beautiful specimen of 
workmanship, showing the skill developed by long experience in this branch 
of manufacture. Here also are sportsmen's canoes, folding boats, snow-
shoes, toboggans, and other special articles adapted to this home of the 
sportsman, with photographs of tourist routes and pleasure resorts. 

In the French section the Parisian manufacturers who are mainly 
represented have organized an exhibit remarkable for its variety of form 
and bright, artistic coloring. A double-decked omnibus, with massive 
enamelled iron guards around the steps, seems to combine comfort with 
safety, and near it is a $1,100 coupe of graceful outlines and richly but 
simply decorated, with an electrical indicator recording the distance 
travelled. Almost beside it is a gilded sedan chair of the seventeenth 
century, adorned with cupids, clusters of fruit, and garlands of flowers, 
while not far away are mail-phaetons of unique design, landaus, dog-carts, 
road coaches, silver-mounted harness and saddles, with other 
paraphernalia, all tastefully arranged, a life-like dummy occasionally 
giving animation to the scene. There is also a small collection of 
bicycles, the remainder of the exhibit relating to the 

Page 575

railroad systems of France already described in this chapter. 

In the section devoted to vehicles Germany plays a modest part, her 
exhibit on the ground floor being confined to a small collection of 
bicycles and tricycles, a few carriages and wagons, registers for public 
cabs which record either time or distance travelled, and a carriage whose 
motive power is gas. Italy is but slightly represented in the 
Transportation department, her entire display consisting of a collection 
of cordage and whips, and a refrigerator car from a Milanese firm. 

Droskies and sleighs of artistic design and elaborate finish, heavy robes, 
muffled outriders and drivers, are what the visitor expects to see in the 
Russian section; nor is he disappointed. Among the finest specimens is a 
large sleigh with rich ebony finish, the runners curving gracefully in 
front and the driver further protected from contact with his horses by a 
rampant figure of the king of beasts. This exhibit is by a Moscow firm, 
and another manufacturer from the same city displays the saddles and 
harness which have gained for him during the past forty years medals of 
bronze, silver and gold from the fairs of his own municipality and those 
of Philadelphia and New Orleans. 

A structure of mediaeval aspect now attracts the attention of the visitor, 
one that appears somewhat out of place in the Transportation building. 
Around it are patches of verdure, and a large mosaic of Columbus, set into 
the wall near the main entrance, adds to the incongruity of the exhibit. 
The Gothic arch which forms the doorway is approached by a short 
staircase, and beyond, and within is the inscription, "The United Tyrolean 
Association for the attraction and guidance of tourists." This edifice is, 
in fact, a reproduction of a Tyrolean monastery of the middle ages, the 
figure of Columbus being the handiwork of native peasantry, who used in 
its construction pieces of opaque glass colored by burning. The alpine 
panorama presented to the visitor as he ascends the stairway is supposed 
to be viewed from the vestibule of the monastery. The canvas shows the 
grandeur of the Mittelberg glacier, and also the signs which direct the 
traveller to noted resorts scattered throughout that region. Two small 
apartments at the side of the panorama further impart a religious aspect 
to the structure, containing as they do carved and painted figures of 
sacred personages, photographs of churches, and burnt etchings in wood in 
imitation of Raphael's work. Small alcoves are filled with articles made 
by the peasantry of the Tyrolean alps, including native costumes, and 
affording a gentle hint as to the real object of the exhibit are samples 
of the clothing best adapted to tourists whose path lies through these 
regions. 

On one side of a screen in the Japanese section adjacent is a series of 
photographs depicturing oriental modes of transportation. A leading role 
is played by the shah of Persia, with his state carriages and gorgeous 
retinue. Opposite is a small space crowded with figures whose originals 
are found among the street carriers of Constantinople, this statement, 
however, not applying to the Turk, apparently bending double under the 
weight of a vast packing box consigned - so reads the custom house label - 
to the Columbian Exposition. The burdens 

Page 577

borne by the donkeys, the sedan carrier with his lady, the peddler with 
market basket on his back and tray of tins before him, and other typical 
characters, are more in keeping with the environment. Packs and harness 
for man and beast, with trappings and appliances of various kinds, are 
also within the scope of the exhibit. 

In the Brazilian section, the old and new, the savage and civilized are 
strangely commingled, and the contrasts are rendered all the more striking 
from juxtaposition within a somewhat contracted area. Along one entire 
side is a canoe, more than fifty feet in length, fashioned from a large 
mahogany tree. A few feet away are a first-class passenger coach for local 
travel, and a roomy tramway car from Rio de Janeiro, with finely finished 
wood-work and reversible seats. Near an antique tricycle of the year 1850, 
the first one seen in Brazil, is the state carriage used by Dom Pedro in 
1822. From the naval department of the republic are the great yards and 
docs at Rio, with models of engines, hoisting and other apparatus there 
employed. In a gaudy Turkish carriage, between the exhibits of Brazil and 
Mexico, is one of the many instances where the most diverse of 
civilizations touch elbows in the Columbian Exposition. 

In the northern half of the gallery floor is a large assortment of 
bicycles and miscellaneous exhibits, and these I will describe beginning 
with the collection of Great Britain, which has here installed the greater 
part of an extensive display of vehicles. On a ledge of the gallery, in 
the midst of a museum of curios presently to be mentioned, stands an odd 
looking machine with wheels joined to a wooden backbone and handle. Upon 
it is a saddle, but the observer cannot detect the mechanism by which it 
was propelled, until in one of the quaint pictures which line 

Page 578

the walls he sees its counterpart. Astride of the latter is depictured, 
with his feet vigorously pawing the ground, the rider of the English hobby-
horse, which, during its brief existence in the early portion of the 
present century, was mercilessly caricatured by the press. The specimen 
here presented is said to have been ridden by the first earl of Durham in 
1810. But aside from its comical appearance, this vehicle is of interest 
as the forerunner of the modern bicycle. Among those who mounted the dandy 
horse, otherwise called the pedestrian curricle, was a Scotch blacksmith, 
who conceived the idea of fitting to the rear wheel of his machine a pair 
of cranks, this being another step toward the noiseless swift-moving 
machine of the present day. Tricycles and tandem bicycles, it may here be 
observed, have never come into such general use as the trim, light, two-
wheeled machine known as the safety - safe as compared with the high-
wheeled pattern, and now furnished with pneumatic tires and trimmings of 
aluminum which help to reduce the weight. 

The British collection consists mainly of bicycles best adapted to the 
excellent roads for which that country is famous. Here and there are a few 
tricycles, and several firms display such specialties as cold-drawn steel 
tubings, tires of peculiar make, and other parts of the machine; but as a 
rule the score of manufacturers who have organized this department confine 
themselves to the modern bicycle in its entirety. A Coventry firm has on 
exhibition more than thirty specimens of safeties alone, some weighing 
only 18 and none more than 30 pounds, the finer grades furnished with the 
twisted tubing which is only used in their construction. A Birmingham 
company has a large assortment installed in a richly furnished section, 
finished in mahogany with a neat office in the centre. Its standard 
machine weighs 37 pounds, the racer being only about half as heavy, and as 
one of its specialties is shown a bicycle for women. In the section 
containing a Nottingham made machine is a large case filled with medals, 
cups, and other prizes won by its rider, now generally recognized as the 
world's champion. The company also furnishes a record for 1892 of 100 
notable races in which the machine and rider participated, the contests 
being held in Great Britain, Germany, Canada, and the United States. 

On the southern wall adjacent to the French section, the institute of 
British Carriage Manufactures has an interesting collection of paintings, 
drawings, and engravings, illustrative of the gradual changes wrought in 
the construction of vehicles. In some of them are depicted stage-coach and 
other modes of travel; in others, the jeering crowds which greeted the 
first steam carriages, as these crude mechanisms halted midway on a steep 
hill, or were imbedded in the mire. Convivial coaching parties are gliding 
swiftly 

Page 579

along green-hedged English roads, and in another series are shown the 
start, the mishaps, and the conclusion of the first recorded steeplechase. 
Caricatures are plentiful, both of Irish and English travel, and in 
hundreds of drawings, here and along the front sections of the gallery, 
are displayed in outline the construction of state coaches and foreign 
vehicles, with the heraldic devices placed upon them. Here is an early 
Spanish coach, there a French carette, and a few feet away the lord-
mayor's carriage of 1757, and the magnificent car of state in which rode 
Louis XIV. Among the members of the institute who have contributed to this 
collection are Hooper and company, carriage builders to the queen and to 
the prince of Wales, and the Coach-makers' company, of London, among the 
rare drawings furnished by the latter being one of the state-coach said to 
have been used by John V of Portugal, in 1706. 

Among the groups of curios arranged along the front of the gallery is an 
array of cruel looking spurs, with massive specimens in brass and silver 
dating from the seventeenth century, and an antique war bit champed by the 
mailed steed of a crusader of the middle ages. 

In the British section also transportation by sea and land is illustrated 
by a collection of models from the government of Ceylon, where the visitor 
may observe the difference in the construction of the bullock-cart used on 
low marshy ground and the one adapted to the highlands; or he may see in 
miniature a carrying chair, a gravel wagon, and a racing cart. Models of 
boats there are whose outlines are somewhat unfamiliar, especially the 
catamarans and the outrigger canoes. The latter carry enormous sails, and 
it is said that the winds that ruffle Ceylonese waters are known as the 
one-man, two-man, and three-man breezes, according to the number of men 
required to perch on the outriggers in order to keep the craft from 
capsizing. The double canoes, or fishing boats, the originals of which are 
made of del wood, closely resemble ice boats. A group of apparatus 
characteristic of the Holy Land, a contribution from the United States 
consul at Jerusalem, is composed of 

Page 580

leather bottles, water-skins, mule-packs, jars, bags for carrying babies, 
and baskets for holding horse feed. Near the model of a boat, such as has 
been used for centuries upon the sea of Galilee, is a small wooden frame 
propelled by children while learning to walk. 

North by the British gallery section, the Japanese department of 
communications has an exhibit supplementary to that of its hydrographic 
and naval bureaus, presently to be described. Here are maps portraying the 
principal routes of coasting steamers and charts indicating the monthly 
average of wrecks in given sections, together with the location of 
lighthouses. There are also traced the railway systems of this country; 
and statistics are plentiful as to the extent of their interests and those 
of the merchant marine. There are numerous models, from those of the 
ubiquitous mule which appears to be the common carrier of mankind to the 
passes of the Usui mountains, showing the Abt railway system and the great 
bridges over the rivers Kurobe and Nishiki. Additions have been made to 
the original bridges completed in the 17th century, but the portions built 
in that era are still considered remarkable feats of engineering. The 
structure thrown over the Kurobe, called the Aimoto bridge, is of the 
cantilever pattern, with a span of more than 160 feet. 

North of the Japanese section, and occupying the entire northern aisle, is 
a large collection of miscellaneous exhibits, as saddles, bridles, and 
harness; wagon, carriage, and saddlery hardware; carriage lamps, axles, 
and springs; collars, chains, halters, and blankets; wheels, and hubs; 
rubber steps, dashes, and fenders; boots for liverymen and leather 
overalls for cowboys. Some of the groups consist entirely of whips, as 
that of a Chicago company which manufactures at the rate of 10,000,000 a 
year. The monotony of these exhibits is somewhat relieved by the groups on 
either side of the northern entresol, one of them in the form of a saddle, 
harness, and cart from Palermo, Sicily, the trappings decorated in the 
highest style of Sicilian art and bedecked with ribbons presenting all the 
hues of the rainbow. The saddle is surmounted by a red plume and the 
collar band studded with small glass mirrors. Of the cart itself, every 
square inch of its body is brightly painted with figures, the spokes, 
hubs, and felloes with alternate stripes of red and blue. It is a national 
conveyance, used either for the carriage of commodities or for the 
conveyance of visitors to local fairs and wedding feasts. 

At the opposite end of the northern gallery are photographs and models 
illustrating the modes of transportation prevailing in South America, 
their subjects ranging from railway stations and railroad trains to brute 
and human pack carriers. Among them are the llama and his burden, the mule 
driver of Columbia, the 

Page 581

mounted milk-woman, and also the native carrier of the Andes with a 
traveller's chair strapped securely to his back. 

At the gateway to the bicycle and marine exhibits of the United States, 
the island of Madeira furnishes a unique contribution. First there is a 
large coach, curtained, roofed, and travelling on runners on streets so 
slippery that wheels would be of no avail. Upon a rear seat the driver 
urges on the bullocks which drag this odd-looking conveyance over the 
paved highway. Here also is shown the mountain sleigh, upholstered in red, 
which slips down the precipitous and well travelled heights with the 
velocity of a locomotive. Another means of conveyance here reproduced is a 
mountain hammock, resembling a sedan, which, attached to poles, is carried 
with its human freight among the mountain peaks of Madeira. 

Not far away is a small museum in which are represented ancient types of 
vehicles. Here is a reproduction of a racing chariot exhumed from a Theban 
burial ground, and of which the original, in the royal museum of Florence, 
is probably the only vehicle that has survived the pre-Christian era. 
Beside it is an unwieldy ox-cart, such as was used by the Pueblos of New 
Mexico. In the cases which partially surround this exhibit are some of the 
oldest railroad tickets and announcements issued in the United States, 
with similar contributions from the railways of Japan. 

In the United States exhibit of bicycles, more than forty of the leading 
manufacturers participate. The display is organized almost on the same 
plan as that of the Great Britain, some of the exhibitors showing special 
parts of the machine, but the majority presenting the entire mechanism. 
Many of the collections are housed in handsome pavilions, and not a few 
are in charge of well-known experts, who have won for themselves an 
excellent record while using the machines whose merits they are always 
ready to explain to the visitor. 

Chicago is well represented in this section, several of the larger 
factories making a somewhat elaborate display. The Western Wheel works 
have, in addition to bicycles of many patterns, wheel chairs and 
children's carriages, all very tastefully arranged in their neat and 
spacious pavilion. In the specimens prepared for exposition, the Stokes 
Manufacturing company has avoided the use of enamel nickel plates that the 
visitor may better judge for himself as to their material and workmanship. 
The Gendron Wheel company, of Toledo, has one of the largest collections 
on exposition, including bicycles, tricycles, 

Page 582

velocipedes, children's carriages and sulkies. In a structure composed of 
brass, a Boston company shows in several styles its bicycles with weldless 
steel tubing. Beside the perfected machine of 1893 are the parts of which 
they are composed, either as unwrought material or in various stages of 
manufacture. There is also a model of the English dandy horse, with 
pedals, of Parisian make, the first safety, which appeared in 1877 in 
Boston streets, and the now antiquated machine on which Stevens made his 
tour of the world. Finally there is a bicycle fashioned for military 
service, one that has recently been adopted by the army department. 

Other features in this division are wooden bicycles from a Newton company 
of Massachusetts. An exhibiting firm, dissatisfied with its space and 
position, placed two of its machines upon the gallery railing, the 
treadles worked by automatic figures. A group finished in rainbow tints is 
among the many ornamental specimens contained in the department. 

About midway in the eastern gallery, near the southern end of the bicycle 
exhibit, are the tent and palanquin in which Mrs. French-Sheldon lived and 
travelled during her journey of 1,000 miles into the heart of the dark 
continent, attended only by her retinue of Africans. The palanquin is 
built of bamboo and aluminum, and contains a bed, an adjustable table, and 
lockers for wardrobe and toilet articles. Around it is reproduced the 
scant herbage of the desert; here also are the boxes in which Mrs. Sheldon 
stored her supplies and her presents for native tribes. 

In the marine division of the Transportation department the most 
interesting exhibits are the Columbian caravels and the Viking ship of the 
Norsemen, reproduced as nearly as possible in facsimile, just as they 
sailed in the seas many centuries ago. After crossing the Atlantic and 
taking part, as I have said, in the naval review in New York harbor, early 
in June the caravels arrived, by way of the lakes, off Jackson park, 
where, as at every port of call, they were received with welcome and 
ovation. With her four 

Page 583

decks, her breast-high bulwarks, her poop some twenty feet above water 
line, and masts and rigging too heavy for her size, the Santa Maria is an 
ungainly looking craft, and yet made the voyage from Spain to Cuba without 
escort or the use of steam tugs, following in the track of the Columbian 
expedition. Of the three craft this is the only one fitted and furnished 
throughout to resemble the original type, so far as could be reproduced an 
obsolete style of naval architecture and equipment. Suspended over the 
main hatchway is a long-boat similar to that which the vessel carried, the 
only one on board. Coiled around the deck are ropes of curious pattern, 
and the hawsers, nearly half a foot in diameter, are strong enough to hold 
a first-class man-of-war. There are no capstans, sails and anchors being 
worked with ropes hauled by main strength. Aft of the ship is the 
admiral's cabin, with its cramped quarters suggestive of bodily 
discomfort, its narrow bedstead covered with a counterpane of red damask 
bordered with lace. Here are numerous relics, including, as is said, the 
table which Columbus used; his chart, his inkstand, and the nautical 
instruments of the day; with the flag presented by Ferdinand and Isabella, 
its white field with cross of green, and on either side the initials of 
their catholic majesties. 

The Pinta is similar in shape to the Santa Maria, though of smaller 
dimensions, and the Nina, with her leg-of-mutton sails, is little better 
than a row-boat, nor larger in size than the bireme of the Greeks. But as 
to these vessels no further details need here be added to the hundreds of 
descriptions published in the current literature of the day. All the three 
craft were presented to the government of the United States, and at the 
close of the Exposition would be cared for by the naval department. 

Of the Viking ship, resembling the vessel in which, 

Page 585

as is claimed, a Norwegian navigator discovered the North American 
continent nearly a thousand years ago, the following is briefly the story. 
During the winter of 1879 a sailor, living at the port of Sandefjord, 
employed his spare time in exploring a mound on the outskirts of the town, 
where, as tradition related, a Viking had been buried with all his earthly 
belongings. In this ancient Saga legend the towns-folk had little faith; 
but the sailor persisted, and after digging a square hole not many feet in 
depth, his spade struck a solid oak plank, which proved to be the side of 
a ship. Thereupon the royal university of Christiania sent men to inspect 
the relic, and in early summer, when the frozen earth could be cleared 
away, it was found to be the genuine craft of "a Viking old," whose 
skeleton, encased in armor, still kept guard over his treasure, its wood-
work, oars, and equipments all well preserved after the lapse of many 
ages. 

The vessel was repaired and removed to the university, where now is its 
home, and as the approaching Columbian Exposition began to be the talk of 
the world, it was determined to send there her counterpart, manned by 
Norwegian sailors and unattended by any other craft, in order to prove the 
feasibility of Leif Erikson's alleged expedition, more than nine centuries 
ago, from Norway to the New England coast. Thus from Sandefjord the 
vessel, built by public subscription in the spring of 1893, set sail for 
New York, and in the middle of July anchored off Jackson park. To call her 
a ship is somewhat of a misnomer, for she has no deck, and carries but 
little sail. Rather is she a large open boat of some 27 tons, more than 70 
feet long and 16 in the beam, with 32 oars, each 17 feet in length, her 
bow and stern far above her body and her clinker-built planks overlapping 
like the weather-boarding of a house. Her lines are remarkably beautiful, 
resembling those of a yacht, the convex curvature of the keel increasing 
her strength and steadiness of motion. Such is the vessel in which a crew 
of Norwegian sailors crossed the Atlantic and the lakes, sleeping on 
reindeer skins and cooking their food as best they could in the bow of 
their unsheltered craft. 

Reentering the Transportation building through the golden doorway, the 
first object to attract attention is a large model of the Santa Maria, 
presented by Santo Domingo. Beyond this is a broad beamed, battered, old-
fashioned craft, with but the faintest traces of paint, one that was 
certainly not placed here for ornament, and of which the following placard 
explains its presence: "In this boat, on the morning of September 6,1838, 
Grace Darling, then 22 years of age, with her father, rescued nine people 
from the wreck of the Forfarshire, at Longstone, on the Farne Island." 
There is no self-righting or other of our modern apparatus wherewith to do 
battle against winds and waves - nothing but sound timbers, sturdy arms, 
and the courage which wrought one of the most heroic deeds that history 
records. 

Turning to the marine exhibits of the United States, we find only a small 
portion of them on the main floor, adjacent to the German section. Here 
are life-preservers and life-boats, launches operated 

Page 586

by steam, gas, naptha, and gasoline, and in the midst of all a caique 
which has seen service on the Bosphorus and the Golden horn. Of modern 
pleasure boats there is a fine collection from Thomas Kane and company, 
builders of the electric launches which ply on the waterways of Jackson 
park. In this vicinity are many other specimens of small, light craft, 
with marine hardware, ships' anchors, steering, hoisting, and other 
nautical apparatus. There are also models of well-known steamships, the 
most complete exhibit of this character being that of the Harlan and 
Hollingsworth company, of Wilmington, Delaware, whose progress in marine 
construction is exemplified in a gallery of pictures and models of the 
schooners, yachts, tugs, ferry boats, steamers, and propellers built at 
its works during more than half a century. Altogether more than 300 
vessels have been constructed, including, as is claimed, the fastest 
steamboat in the United States, the first iron screw steamer for inland 
service, the first iron steam pilot boat, the second largest transfer 
steamer in the world, and the first iron steamer for ocean service, 
completed in 1844, these and others forming a chronological panorama of 
the progress of ship-building in the United States. In this pavilion is 
also a working model in gold and silver of the machinery in one of the 
company's iron steamers running on Long Island sound. 

Across the main aisle near the southern entrance-way, is the exhibit of 
the International Navigation company of Philadelphia, consisting of a full-
sized section of a steamer now being constructed at the ship-building 
yards of William Cramp and sons. As this is the only transatlantic line of 
steamers owned in the United States that will bear comparison with the 
Cunard and other European systems, the display is of special interest to 
American travellers; for here is shown not only the exterior of the vessel 
but all its internal arrangements, furnishings, and equipments. 

The section is more than 70 feet long by 35 in width, or about one seventh 
of the entire length of the ship. The floor of the Transportation hall 
represents the water line of the steamer, which is 26 feet above the keel, 
so that, if the model were complete, it must sink that distance into the 
ground. As here it stands the promenade deck is 25 feet from the floor, 
above which rises the funnel to a further height of 53 feet, thus giving a 
depth of 104 feet from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the keel, 
the former almost touching the roof truss of the building, and painted 
black with a band of white, as the distinguishing mark of the company, to 
which belongs the well-known steamships, Paris and New York. The sides are 
studded with port-holes to a height of 17 feet above the floor, where the 
iron plating ends and the railing of the second or saloon deck begins. 
Above this is the first or promenade deck, and above all, the bridge, 
whence orders are given and the course of the vessel directed. Entered 
from the floor, the first compartment exhibits an array of models of 
steamers, for one of which, that of the Paris a gold medal was awarded at 
the Exposition of 1889. Next are the steerage quarters, with family rooms 
and single berths for men, with thorough ventilation and electric 
lighting, as in other portions of the ship. A stairway leads from the 
model room to the deck above, where are first and second-class cabins, the 
former with sofa and extension berths so arranged as to communicate when 
required for family use. Ascending to another deck, the visitor enters a 
large, open hall, handsomely finished in dark mahogany and 

Page 587

gold. Passing thence to the right he comes to the dining saloon, with wood 
work, chairs, and tables of white mahogany, and with walls and ceilings in 
light green panellings relieved by silver mouldings. In the centre is an 
arch of glass panels through which sunlight is admitted by day and 
electric light by night, its base supported by carved allegorical figures 
and surrounded with groups symbolical of commerce. At one end of this deck 
is a suite of rooms, the chamber containing a double bedstead with folding 
wardrobe and opening into a bathroom, while in the sitting-room the sofas 
can also be used as berths. The decorations of the suite are in ivory and 
gold, with upholstering to match, frescoed panels and ceiling artistically 
painted. 

The highest or promenade deck is in three divisions, first of which is the 
hall around the stairs or companionway, corresponding with the one below 
and the same as to size and finishings. Then comes the library, with wood-
work of dark mahogany, ceiling tinted in gold, and lighted by large square 
windows, above which are smaller windows for purposes of ventilation, the 
former covered at night by sliding sashes of leaded glass, fitted with 
electric burners. Seats upholstered in dark planks are ranged along the 
outer walls, with tables and writing materials. Finally there is the 
smoking-room, handsomely furnished as are all the rest, with carved 
mahogany chairs arranged in three sides of a series of hollow squares, and 
a table in the centre of each. 

No wonder that 20,000 persons on an average passed daily through this 
sectional model exhibited by the International Navigation company. Here is 
in truth embodied the luxury of travel by sea, with carpeted floors, the 
richest of furniture, and all the appointments of a luxurious home. By 
Doctor Johnson a ship has been described as a prison house, with the 
additional disadvantage of the risk of drowning; but the good doctor did 
not make his historic journey to the Hebrides on board a modern 
transatlantic liner. 

Passing from the promenade deck, one may step into the gallery of the 
Transportation building and there commence his examination of the large 
array of American marine exhibits, extending thence northward for several 
hundred feet. Here are not only exhibits from every portion of the United 
States, showing the present status of marine construction and its historic 
development, but from travellers, naval officers, consuls representing the 
government in many distant lands, and from foreign commission are also 
numerous collections. In this section the main purpose is to illustrate 
the forms of marine architecture prevailing in the United States, the 
curios from other lands serving as a foil to the specimens wherein are 
represented modern enterprise, ingenuity, and skill. For example, above 
the large model of a ship-building plant are suspended a black wooden 
canoe from the isthmus of Panama, and a raft of straw from Lake Titicaca, 
such as are used on the inland waters of South America. Near by is an old 
bateau, found on the banks of the upper St. Croix, in Wisconsin, and 
contributed by the Historical society of that state as an illustration of 
the 

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French-Canadian style of river craft in the early fur-trading days of the 
northwest. Though called a canoe, it weighs several thousand pounds, and 
was built to carry a score of voyagers and traders and a tone of goods. 
Not far away are beautiful models of the Columbian caravels, with whose 
outlines we are familiar, and a number of cases filled with tiny models of 
Hindoo chairs, carts, rafts, boats, and canoes, with illustrations of the 
marine architecture of India, ranging from the luxurious barge of state 
which plies on the lake of Kashmir to the rounded piece of wood on which 
the native lies face downward, propelling himself with his feet and 
fishing as he goes. 

In another section is a Venetian gondola, finished and furnished in ebony, 
near which are Alaskan canoes, in one of them the figure of a native 
fisherman and hunter armed with weapons of the chase. Here an Australian 
bark canoe may be compared with the Alaskan haida of cedar, and a boat 
from Hammerfest, Norway, with models of the craft which float on Chinese 
waters. Of all the collective exhibits from foreign lands, that which the 
Siamese commission has furnished is the most extensive, and the one most 
thoroughly typical of the country and people which it represents. It 
consists of about 100 models, including ponderous junks, in shape not 
unlike those of the Chinese, and low tapering boats with sharp bows, 
similar in shape to racing shells, but inlaid with gold and pearl and 
otherwise decorated in oriental fashion. There are also craft intended for 
river service, for the sea, and for fishing and pleasure boats. In another 
department are models of carts, coaches, and sedans, both for common use 
and for weddings, festivals, and state occasions. 

Turning again to the exhibits representative of modern naval architecture, 
may first be mentioned that of the Union Iron-works in San Francisco, near 
the gallery exit from the model displayed by the International line. 
Suspended from the roof of a handsome pavilion, broad festoons of silk 
serve as a canopy for realistic models of its workshops, ship-yards, 
docks, and vessels in process of construction or afloat on the waters of 
the bay. 

In a section opposite is a relief map of the Nicaragua canal, a working 
model illustrating the projected system of locks, excavations, and dams. 
The map, which covers about 100 square feet, is constructed 

Page 589

on a vertical scale of one to 2,000, and a horizontal scale of one to 30,
000, this proportion allowing the engineering details to be plainly 
indicated, the points where work is being done or has been projected, 
being shown by patches of red. Lead pipes are molded into the ground work 
of the map, and when the water turned into them fills the beds of Lake 
Nicaragua and the San Juan river, the nature of the enterprise is at once 
understood. From a dam constructed about midway between the reservoir and 
the Atlantic, the waters of the river can be raised to a level with those 
of the lake. 

In order to float a chip, which here represents a vessel, from the Pacific 
to the Atlantic, it must first be carried into a miniature canal cut for a 
mile and a half through the rocky ridge of the continental divide, lifted 
over three locks into the so-called Tola basin, and then set adrift in 
another cut, representing a canal eight miles in length. The distance from 
the Pacific Ocean to Lake Nicaragua is only twelve miles, but from one 
side much of the heaviest work is yet to be accomplished, including the 
blasting of solid rock 70 feet in thickness. The route projected is across 
the lower end of the lake, south of the inactive volcanoes of Ometepe and 
Madera, past old Fort San Carlos, where light dredging is to be done 
through volcanic ashes, and into the Rio San Juan, through which for 64 
miles it runs to the commencement of the eastern artificial channel. The 
channel, which is more than 30 miles long, contains three locks, and thus 
at length the vessel passes into the harbor of Greytown and the Atlantic 
Ocean. Of the total distance from sea to sea, nearly 170 miles, Lake 
Nicaragua, San Juan river, and the natural basins furnish 142 miles of 
free navigation. 

In an adjacent section is illustrated the construction of the huge log 
rafts and towboats of the Mississippi, and opposite is a collection of 
models, photographs, and paintings, showing how whaleback barges and 
steamers are built 

Page 591

at the yards of a company whose headquarters are at Superior, Wisconsin. 
Near by is a relief map, resembling rather a plaster model of St. Thomas 
island, in the Danish West Indies, by Charles E. Taylor. Here are 
reproduced, with remarkable fidelity of detail, the waves of ocean 
breaking on the shores, the fringes of cocoa palms that surround the 
island, the ships in the harbor, including the caravels which touched 
there, the dry docks, fishermen's huts, and the houses and streets of the 
seaport. Around it are terra cotta plaques and photographs presenting 
views of the island scenery upon a more extended scale. 

In another relief map is shown the entire canal system of the state of New 
York, with the topography of the adjacent country illustrated. This is the 
work of Martin V. Schenck, state engineer and surveyor, and with it are 
models of the doubled and lengthened locks, showing how the products of 
the west are conveyed rapidly and cheaply to the seaboard. Of historic 
interest is the model of the original lock built at Little Falls 

Page 592

In a modest booth, not far away, the state commissioners of Maine have 
models of famous ships which have sailed from their ports and in a corner 
of this section is a small old-fashioned cannon, captured from the British 
brig Boxer during the war of 1812. Beyond a pavilion which contains the 
models of the ship-yard and steamers of a Virginia company, the exhibit is 
largely historic and pictorial. In the centre of a boat, for instance, are 
the original engine and boiler of the first twin screw steamboat, built by 
John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1804. This is a portion of the 
exhibit of a ferry company of that city, and adjacent to it are models and 
pictures from a New York company, showing the architectural evolution of 
steamers which have plied on Long Island sound, from the Fulton to the 
latest craft launched from New England shipyards. 

Harper and brothers and other publishing houses have selected from the 
best of their art works, extending over many years, sketches, drawings, 
and engravings, representing modes of transportation among many people and 
countries, ranging from the war canoes of the Congos to the cruisers of 
the white squadron, and from the bullock cart of Siam to the steam 
leviathans of modern railroads. In one section may be traced the 
development of our naval architecture, and in another is shown the 
excitement produced in the land of the Pharaohs by the advent of the 
bicycle. In addition to these collections are several galleries filled 
with paintings of marine subjects. Among them are scenes along the coast 
of Jersey, some of them depicturing the dangers that confront the pilots 
of Sandy hook. Here also is Farragut's fleet and the harbor fronting the 
World's Fair city. But the most complete exhibit, one illustrating the 
development of the merchant service of the United States together with 
ingenious types of oriental craft, is that of the Essex institute 

Page 593

and Peabody academy of Massachusetts. Salem is one of the oldest seaports 
in the country, and the pictures of her ships, some of them water colors 
by Ross Turner, cover the period from 1765 to 1893. There are also models 
of old English frigates, as of the Sovereign of the Seas, launched in 
1637, in contrast with which are those of Chinese freight and fishing 
craft, and a mandarin dragon or racing boat. 

The marine display of Great Britain is on the ground floor of the 
Transportation building. Here is a complete representation of the history 
of British ship-building for more than three-score years, showing the 
progress made in the construction and equipment of her naval and merchant 
service, her steamers and sailing vessels, torpedo boats, launches, tugs, 
and the craft used for river and lake navigation. By the Thames Ironworks 
and Shipbuilding company is illustrated in models the development of the 
British iron-clad, beginning with the Warrior, launched in 1860, and then 
believed to hold the navies of the world at her mercy. Her armor, more 
than four inches in thickness would resist a 68-pound shot, then the 
heaviest projectile used, asn as was thought the heaviest that could be 
used; but year by year the invention of more powerful weapons called for 
heavier armor, until today 20-inch plates are considered none too thick 
for a first-class line-of-battle ship. In other models to the Warrior, but 
of larger size, the Sanspareil, of 10,500 tons displacement and 14,000 
horse-power, and the steel cruisers Blenheim and Theseus both with a speed 
of more than twenty knots. Then there are war vessels built for various 
foreign nations, with steam and sailing yachts and craft for special 
service. 

From the works of Armstrong Mitchell and company, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
comes probably the largest model of a ship that was ever exhibited. It is 
that of the ill-fated Victoria, reproducing on a scale one-twelfth of the 
original size, and with all her armor and equipments to the smallest 
minutiae of detail, a 10,500 tone vessel, 360 feet long and one of the 
most powerful of her class. Only the 

Page 594

starboard side is presented; but in the mirrored background is viewed the 
entire ship resting on an unruffled sea, amid the accessories of naval 
warfare imitated in most realistic fashion. The model and its guns are of 
steel and nickel plate; the anchors and cables of polished steel, with 
boats in facsimile, and a netting of wire for protection against 
torpedoes. Another model is that of the 25 de Mayo, a cruiser built by 
this firm for the Argentinian government. 

From a Clydebank firm are models of several war vessels, including the 
Ramillies, launched in 1892, one of the most powerful battle-ships afloat, 
and the Reina Regente, a Spanish cruiser which took part in the naval 
review in New York harbor, with channel and Atlantic steamers, the latter 
with a speed of twenty-three knots an hour. A London house shows models of 
torpedo boat catchers, with one of the Opale, built in sections for the 
French government during the Dahomey campaign. From the Sheffield works 
are exhibits of armor plates and naval apparatus, and from other firms are 
quick-firing guns, including those of the Nordenfelt and Adamson patterns. 

In the display of the Cunary Steamship company are models of its most 
powerful vessels, beginning with the Britannia, of 1,139 tons and 740 
horse-power, built int 1840, and ending with the Campania of 12,500 tons 
and 24,000 horse-power, launched in 1893, the latter 620 feet in length, 
or only 60 feet shorter than the Great Eastern. All the models were 
constructed by the company's naval architects, on the scale of one fourth 
of an inch to the foot. They are contained in glass cases, resting on 
carved oaken tables, and with ivory tablets descriptive of each of the 
exhibits. 

In smaller models the Peninsular and Oriental company illustrates, in 
periods of a decade each, the various types of steamers used and now in 
use since first it took the field, in 1837, with two vessels little 

Page 595

larger than the life-boats which today its ocean greyhounds carry. In map 
form are shown all parts of the world to which its service extends, and 
information is here afforded as to the progress of naval architecture and 
engineering during the term of the company's existence. The operations of 
this company are on a gigantic scale, with nearly threescore steamers 
plying on the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Indian oceans, 
representing a value of $35,000,000 and with subsidies of $1,650,000 a 
year from the British and other governments. In return, more than one half 
of their boats are armed as cruisers, ready for instant service, and all 
are subject at the briefest notice to the orders of the British admiralty. 

From the Laird brothers, of Birkenhead, is also an elaborate collection of 
historic models, one being that of the steamer, John Randolph, launched in 
1834, and another a reproduction of a steam-yacht built for the 
Vanderbilts in 1893. Among them are represented vessels built for the 
Chilean navy, the cause of recent tr