The Harris-Ingram ExperimentBolton, Charles E. (Charles Edward)
Science
The Harris-Ingram Experiment
Bolton, Charles E. (Charles Edward)
Science fiction, American
Paris under electric light is indeed a fairyland. The boulevards are
brilliant and the scenes most animating. Everybody is courteous, and
all seen bent on a pleasurable time. Cafes, shops, and places of
entertainment are very inviting, and you easily forget to note the
passage of time. Midnight even overtakes you before you are aware of
the lateness of the hour. This is true, if you chance to visit, as did
the Harris party, some characteristic phases of Parisian life.
Near the east end of the Champs-Elysees, under the gas light and beneath
the trees, they found open-air theaters, concerts, crowded cafes, and
pretty booths supplied with sweets and drinks. Every afternoon if the
weather is favorable, tastefully dressed children appear in charge of
nursemaids in white caps and aprons, and together they make picturesque
groups in the shade of elm and lime trees.
At breakfast, Leo proposed a study of Paris, as seen from the Arc de
Triomphe de l'Etoile, so named from the star formed by a dozen avenues
which radiate from it. The location is at the west end of the Avenue des
Champs-Elysees. This monument is one of the finest ever built by any
nation for its defenders. It is 160 feet in height, 145 in width, was
begun in 1806 by Napoleon and completed thirty years afterwards by Louis
Philippe. Figures and reliefs on the arch represent important events in
Napoleon's campaigns. Arriving at the arch, Leo led the way up a spiral
staircase, 261 steps to the platform above which commands fine views of
Paris.
The Champs-Elysees, a boulevard one thousand feet in width, extends east
over a mile from the monument of the Place de la Concord. Handsome
buildings flank the sides, and much of the open space is shaded with elm
and lime trees. Grand statues, fountains, and flowers add their charm.
Between three and five o'clock every pleasant afternoon this magnificent
avenue becomes the most fashionable promenade in the world. Here you will
behold the elite in attendance at Vanity Fair; many are riding in elegant
equipages, many on horseback, and almost countless numbers on foot.
The popular drive is out the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 320 feet in
width, to the Bois de Boulogne, a beautiful park of 2250 acres,
containing several lakes and fringed on the west side by the River
Seine. In the southwest part of this park is located the Hippodrome de
Longchamp, which is the principal race-course near Paris, where races
attract vast crowds, especially when the French Derby or the Grand Prix
of twenty thousand dollars is competed for early in June.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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