From these starting points it was not so difficult to outline the rest of the water programme. There should be a ceremony of receiving the two historic craft down the bay and conducting them in a mighty parade consisting of all the steam craft plying the nearby waters, ranged in a fair flotilla up Hudson’s River passing the long range of seven miles of warships and, after a ceremony of reception, returning in like order to their berths and piers. There should be on land and water a grand illumination by night with fireworks of the most spectacular kind. There should again be a beautiful water pageant when the Half Moon and the Clermont were escorted up the river that the towns and cities along its banks might partake of the glory of the time. They would let the procession of ships from New York end their pilgrimage at Newburg and there let another flotilla conduct the memorial ships to Albany where the river narrows and shoals. So was the unique water side of the celebration outlined. For the land side the preparations were on an equally grand scale, but here they were dealing with more familiar material. We had had festival parades of like kind before; now we were to have more of them than ever and each one to be more marvellous of its kind than anything before conceived. No less than three great processions were arranged—a grand civic procession illustrating in floats three centuries of New York’s history, and made up of the men of the forty races and nationalities of which our population is compounded; a military parade to display every branch of our army service, state and national, and in which details of sailors and marines from the foreign warships as well as our own, should paradoxically testify to international brotherly love by marching peacefully together armed to the teeth. Lastly was designed a Carnival parade—a night march, devoted to artistic symbols on illuminated floats and conducted by costumed thousands from the German, Austrian and Swiss societies of the City. It was natural to call on the city to drape and decorate its buildings lavishly, to arrange for general illumination: to design a finely pillared Court of Honor on Fifth Avenue just below 42d St. and hang it with mazes of electric lights, to erect a grand reviewing stand facing the Avenue and with its back to the great Library Building just emerged from its scaffolding. In such cases, many minor suggestions follow on the heels of the great ones, and the week of wonders threatened to extend indefinitely. A notable loan collection of paintings of the Dutch school was assembled for exhibition at the Museum of Art, a rare collection of Colonial furniture was also secured. Then came a reception with oratory at the Metropolitan Opera House, an Irish concert at Carnegie Hall, an opera house music festival, aquatic sports, an exhibition of flying machines and a beautiful open air fête for 40,000 school children in the parks.