Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1889 — FRANCE’S GREAT TOWER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FRANCE’S GREAT TOWER

IT WILL BE A PRINCIPAL FEATURE OF THE PARTS EXPOSITION. —■• Penetrating the Clouds a Distance of One Thousand Feet —Built at an Expense of One Million Dollars—A Truthful Picture of the Obelisk. [Paris special telegram. The great Eiffel Tower, which will be one of the principal features of the Paris exposition, has been officially opened at Paris. Premier Tirard delivered the oration. The tower cost nearly, if not quite, $1,000,000, of which $300,000 was paid by the French G overnment. The tower stands immediately upon the bank of the south side of the river, on the Champ de Mars. Its base forms a gigantic archway over the main path leading from the bridge into

the central grounds of the exposition. As can be seen from the picture, the tower is built entirely of iron girders and pillars, in the simple construction of four great shafts, consisting of four columns e ich, starting from the four corners of the base and merging into the single great shaft ■which forms the main part of the tower. This shaft ends in the great cupola, or Alpine reception-room, which, in turn, is surmounted by a still higher lantern or lookout, whose observation platform will be upon the dizzy plane of 1,000 feet. There are three galleries circling the tower. The first great gallery, just above the archway, stands 185 feet above the ground, and measures neatly 300 feet each way. Here are placed cases, restaurants, reading-rooms, smoking and lounging compartments, and all the amusements and comforts of a French resort. Thousands of people at one time can be made at home in this great inclosure far up in the cool air without any necessity of crowding or treading on one another’s toes. It is also proposed to give band concerts daily at this stage in the journey heavenward, so that the first gallery will probably become the great rendezvous and promenade, and the flaneurs and the hauts gommeux will use it, as they do the boulevards, for their afternoon stroll, even though they are as high in the air as the towers of Notre Dame. The second gallery, still forming part of the base of the tower, rests lightly upon its iron supports at a height of 380 feet, or about fifteen feet higher than the highest part of Milan Cathedral. Here is a repetition of the life upon the first gallery below, for a more select few. Finally, as the tower mounts up farther and farther, past the level, first of St. Peter’s, then the Strasbourg Cathedral and the great pyramid, the cathedrals of Rouen and Cologne, and, last of all, the great Washington monument, and then stretches its slender shaft through the remaining hundreds of feet toward the summit, there is placed at the top, where the cupola begins, a third gallery, 870 feet in the air, small in comparison to the others, but still more than fifty feet broad each way. Rest and refreshment will be found here, as well as below. The whole tower weighs about 15,000,000 pounds, or 7,500 tons. This weight is distributed over the foundation soil, it is computed, at a pressure of a little less than five pounds to the square centimeter. Also the wind resistance of the tower is calculated at 650 pounds to the square meter, while the highest wind ever observed in Paris would not give a half of this pressure. The tower is fitted up on the inside of the shafts with elevators. There are half a dozen connecting the first two galleries with the grounds, and two go to the top, the extreme height of which is 1,000 feet.

THE EIFFEL TOWER.