Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1889 — Eiffel’s Tower—1,178 Feet High. [ARTICLE]

Eiffel’s Tower—1,178 Feet High.

It takes on an average forty minutes to walk up the spiral staircase to the top of the great structure. By elevator the journey can be made in one-eighth that time. A correspondent of the New York Evening Post went to a little above the 1,000-foot mark, and he thus writes of his trip: “I a scended with M. Clemenceau, Admiral Maxse, and Miss Maxse, a girl of 16. At 1,000 feet the winding iron stair stopped. I crawled aci'oss the plank over the abyss on my hands and knees. On rising to my feet I stumbled, but fortunately regained my balance and did not fall off the exposed platform, but the moment was somewhat ghastly. Then M. Clemenceau and I began the ascent cf ladders about thirty feet high. The wind was blowing hard, and there was a slight shower of hail. It was bitterly cold, the ladders shook under the ascent, and I persuaded M. Clemenceau to desist. His hands were so cold that he might have slipped, and the consequences to the republic would have been calamitous. We came down the ladder and felt much more comfortable when we were once more on the staircase.”