Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878.Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878.
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
All the exhibits are classed under nine general groups, which are--1. Fine
arts; 2. Liberal arts and education; 3. Furniture and accessories; 4.
Textile fabrics and clothing; 5. Mining industries and raw products; 6.
Machinery; 7. Alimentary products; 8. Agriculture; 9. Horticulture. The
first of these occupies the pavilions in the central court. The second and
following ones to the seventh occupy the galleries as one passes from the
central court to the exterior of the building; agricultural implements and
products are shown in spacious sheds outside the main building and within
the enclosing fence; animals are shown in a separate enclosure on the
esplanade of the Invalides. Horticulture finds a place in all the
intervals wherever there is a square yard of ground not necessary for
paths, and also on the two esplanades which divide the Palais du Champ de
Mars and the Palais Trocadero from the river which flows between. The
subjective character of the longitudinal disposition cannot be rigorously
maintained, since nations that excel in one or another line of work or
culture are utterly deficient in others. China and Japan, for instance,
fill their galleries to overflowing with papeterie, furniture and
knickknacks, while their space in the machinery hall is principally
devoted to ceramics, a few rude implements and costumed figures.
The English pavilion in the Galerie d'Iena consists of four wooden
structures representing Oriental mosques and kiosques, painted red and
surmounted by numerous gilded domes of the bulbous shape so characteristic
of the Indian architecture. In the order of position, as approached from
the main central doorway, the first and third are Indian, the second
Ceylonese, and the fourth is devoted to the productions of Jamaica,
Guiana, Trinidad, Trinity Island, Lagos, Seychelles, Mauritius, the Strait
Settlements and Singapore. Their contents, without attempting an
enumeration, are rather of the useful than the ornamental, with the
exception of the furniture, carpets, dresses and tissues. The Lagos
collection has a number of native drums, with snake-skin heads on bodies
carved from the solid wood, and it has also a very curious lyre of eight
strings strained by as many elastic wooden rods fastened to a box which
forms the sounding-chamber. It is individually more curious than any shown
at the Centennial from the Gold Coast, but the collection from Africa as a
whole is not nearly so full nor so fine. Mauritius has agave fibre, sugar,
shells, coral and vanilla. The Seychelles have large tortoise-shells and
the famous _cocoa de mer_, the three-lobed cocoanut peculiar to the
island, and found on the coast of India thrown up by the sea. It received
its name from that circumstance long before its home was discovered, from
whence it had been carried by the south-east monsoons. Trinity Island
sends sugar, cacao and rum; Trinidad presents sugar, asphaltum, cocoawood
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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