Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1883 — The Great Southern Exposition. [ARTICLE]

The Great Southern Exposition.

Now running in Louisville, Ky., is a big institution. The editor of The Republican spent the last two days of of last week in Louisville, and the greater part of the time was passed within the Exposition grounds. The design and scope of the exposition is to give a comprehensive exhibition of the characteristic productions, arts and manufacturies of the Southern States. The buildings and grounds of the exposition occupy a spacious and beautiful park in the southern part of the city. The main building is an immense and handsome structure, said to rival in magnitude the main building of the great Centennial at Philadelphia. It is built around four open courts, ahd is admirably calculated for the purposes of an exposition, the arrangements for light and ventillatiou being especially commendable. To give anything like an adequate description of the Expostion within the limits of a newspaper article is, of course, impossible. Many of the southern states have large departments, with oxhibitsj extensive enough to require hours | for their intelligent inspection. Th f departments of the states of '"Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama. Arkansas and Mississippi are especially large and excellent:

The display of machinery of all kinds is, of course, a leading feature of the exposition . Agricultural implements in endless variety. Steam engines, mining, milling and wood-working machinery of all kinds and styles. A complete cotton factory is already in operation inside the building, where all the operations of cloth manufacture may be seen, and a woolen factory is nearly ready to commence operations. The United States geological and geographical survey has a large and most interesting exhibit, the most striking of feature which is a large collection of articles of Indian manufacture, from Alaska. The Messrs Perkins’, of Rensselaer and Delphi, have a complete butter making establishment in a corner of the main building, where butt er is made every day from fresh cream, shipped from Rensselaer. These gentlemen have quite a bonanza in “ice cold buttermilk at five cents a glass. t A circular electric railway has been constructed within the grounds .of the exposition, about a a quarter mile m extent, upon which a train, consisting of a locomotive and two passenger cars, makes trips every few minutes during the afternoon and evenings. The famous Seventh Regiment Band, from New York, was present at the Exposition, and every afternoon in the park, and in the evening within the main building, favored their auditors with the beautiful melodies of the great composers. Five thousand of the beautiful incandescent Edison electric lights make the building radiant in the night. The Edison light is far superior to the common electric lights, burning steadily and without the annoying flashings common to other electric lights. The magnificent collection of paintings, statuary, ceramics and bric-a-brac in the art gallery is, in bur opinion, the chief glory of the exposition, and is entitled to a fuller description than we can afford space for this week, and we shall make the subject of a separate article next week.