Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1893 — THE WORLD’S FAIR. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE WORLD’S FAIR.

A Few of Its Wonders—Pennsylvania’s Pyramid of Coal. In the exact center of the Mines Building is a tall needle of anthracite coal from the Mammoth vein of Pennsylvania. It is a part of the State exhibit. Fifty-four feet high -it stands, and in the mass are nine-ty-five tons. The foundation goes through the floor. The mass is ten fen feet square. The cap was put on and the needle completed Thursday. It cost 110,000 to get up the pyramid. The bottom layer is from the bottom of the coal vein, the second layer is from the second layer in the coal vein, and so on to the top. There are six car-loads of it in all. How many men and women are prepared to believe that a fabric, as soft and pliable as silk, with a gloss and texture rivaling the weaver’s art, can be spun and woven of glass? Not many, doubtless, yet it is actually being done every day at the Exposition. The glass-worker who blows and twists and shapes into all sorts of fantastic and ingen-

ious forms, souvenirs of the Fair, is a familial’ feature of every exhibition. The man who engraves your name on a mug or goblet “while you wait” is an annual attraction at all the shows, but the glass-spinner who draws over a wheel that looks like an old-fashioned bicycle with a wide tire a thread fine and elastic as a silkworm’s web is a decided novelty, and the weaver whose deft fingers toss the bobbin back and forth in the loom, fashioning the crystal threads into a cloth of surpassing fineness, is almost new in the realm of industrial art. In the whole exposition, wonderful as it is in all departments, there is no illustration of progress more interesting than the magic transformation of sand into this cloth of glass and its manipulation into hundreds of ornamental uses. In making this new art a prominent object lesson in their model glass works the Libby Glass Company, of Toledo, O.,have afforded the public a chance of viewing one of the most astonishing achievements of modern handicraft. The ceiling of their showroom has been adorned with a glass tapestry at the cost of SIO,OOO. Nothing like it in interior decoration has been seen before. Articles of furniture, small tapestries, table scarfs, lamp shades, and other objects made of this rare fabric are displayed, beautiful in design and rich in color. This exhibit is a favorite resort of the ladies, who flock to it daily in constantly increasing numbers. Owing to the superior quality of ’their ware the Libby Glass Company were allowed the exclusive privilege

jf constructing and operating a cutglass factory on the Exposition grounds and they evidently intended to leave a lasting impression on the minds of all. The building, the surroundings of which are elaborately ornamented, cost over $125,000, and is equipped with the best machinery and appliances. Over two hundred skilled operators are employed and the expenses exceed SI,OOO per day. Every process of glass working is carried on before the admiring gaze of visitors, from the great furnaces and crucibles containing the molten metal, red with heat, to the shapely crystal pieces cut and polished into the dazzle of the diamond. So interesting is each stage of the work that the visitor is loth to leave the fascinating place. Some of the finished pieces of cut glass are finer and handsomer than any yet shown in this country, and cannot be exceeded by any European artisan. Since the opening of the exposition more than one-third of all the visitors have passed through the turnstiles at. the entrance to the glass factory. Five thousand can be accommodated at one time, yet so great has been the patronage that Mr. s Libby has been compiled to charge a nominal admission fee of 10 cents in order to prevent overcrowding, but each visitor receives a souvenir in glass. It is not too much to say that one-half the whole num-

ber who attend the Fair will visit this marvelous exhibit. ■ ’ The Company will show in their exhibit at the Columbian Exposition a great number of interesting original manuscripts and drawings for important illustrations in the Century and St. Nicholas. Manuscript poems by Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant will appear in the St. Nicholas exhibit, with the manuscript of the first chapter of “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” by Mrs. Burnett, and original stories by other well-known

writers. The originals of famous letters and documents quoted in Messrs. Nicolay and Hay’s “Life ol Lincoln” will be shown, including a certificate of a road survey made by Lincoln in 1834, with bill for his services at $3 a day, the letter of the committee apprising Mr. Lincoln ol his first nomination for the presidency and his reply, the corrected copy of his inaugural address, from which he read, March 4, 1861, the original draft of his proclamation calling for 75,000 men, drafts of important messages to Congress, as submitted to the Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln’s written speech on Kenting Grant his commission as ;enant-general, and the autograph copy, in pencil, of General Grant’s reply. Letters from General Grant to the editors of tbe Century regarding his papers for ths War Series — the last from Mt. McGregor will be exhibited, with original manuscripts by General McClellan, Joseph E. Johnston, and others. The Century Company will show also how an illustration is prepared for the magazine, from the artist's drawing to the printed page, by wood-engraving, and by various photo-engraving processes; how the ‘‘Century Dictionary” was made,

with copies of the earliest English dictionaries, and manuscripts and proofs of the “Century Dictionary," in various stages. This exhibit, with that of other publishers, will be found in the north gallery of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building

PENNSYLVANIA'S NEEDLE OF COAL.

LIBBY GLASS WORKS.

THE FIRST TYPEWRITER. [Patent Office exhibit.]

THE FERRIS REVOLVING WHEEL.