The exposition under one roof of products of every kind, natural and cultivated, mechanical and artistic, has a certain impressiveness from the wonderful extent and variety of the assemblage, but the effect is confusing and oppressive. The Philadelphia plan of grouping the exhibits in separate buildings was both more pleasant to the eye and more useful to the student. There is no place in Paris, however, affording room for isolated buildings of sufficient aggregate area, and the Bois de Boulogne, though immediately outside the fortified enceinte, in much the same position, relatively, that Fairmount Park holds to Philadelphia, was probably held to be too remote. [Illustration: GRAND CUPOLA AT ONE OF THE CHIEF ENTRANCES TO THE MAIN BUILDING.] The Exposition building is too low to afford grand general views except in the end-galleries, one of which, that toward the Seine, is occupied by England and France, and the other, that toward the Ecole Militaire, by Holland and France. The four especially admirable situations for display are under the domes at the four corners of the building, and these are respectively occupied by the English colonies, the Dutch colonies, a statue of Charlemagne and a trophy of French metallic work--notably, large tubes for telescopes. The French, as most readers are aware, occupy one half of the building, and foreigners the other, the two being divided, except at the end-galleries, by a central court in which are the fine-art pavilions. Transverse divisions separate the foreigners' sections from each other, while longitudinal divisions extending throughout the length of the building divide the various classes of exhibits subjectively. A person may thus cross the building and view the exhibits of a country in the different classes, or he may go lengthwise of the building and see what the various nations have to show in a given class. No better plan could be devised if they are all to be assembled under one roof. The same plan has been tried before, especially in the great elliptical building at Vienna. It is probable that the Philadelphia plan of isolated buildings may find imitators in the future, and then this plan of national and subjective arrangement may be carried out without the violent contrasts incident to sandwiching the machine galleries between the alimentary and chemical sections.