CHAPTER XVII.

THE GOVERNMENT BUILDING.

Marvelous Collection of Exhibits made by "Uncle Sam"— Three Thousand Models from the Patent Office
—Progress of American Invention Elaborately Presented— The Smithsonian Display Alone a Won-
derful Educator— Bird and Beast Mounted Amid the Same Surroundings as in Life— Each Specimen
so Labeled that no Observer can make a Mistake— A First-Class Postoffice in Operation— Dead
Letter Curiosities— Tarantulas, Horned Toads, Human Skulls, Axes, Dolls, Molasses Candy, Stuffed
Owls, Alligators, Ostrich Eggs, and Thousands of Other Things that never Reached their Des-
tination—War Department Novelties- Great Guns and Little Ones— Cannons and Torpedoes-
Historic Documents from the Department of Justice—Documents Connected with the Dred Scott
Decision— Great Exhibit by the Agricultural Department— Horticulture, Pomology and Forestry
-Special Alaskan Exhibit— Quaint, Curious and Interesting Objects of Ethnological Research-
Peculiarities of Many Birds and Beasts.

OUR Uncle Sam's place — the Government Building — is al-
ways crowded; and the intelligent variety of its exhibit and
its usefulness as an educator is best illustrated by the many
thousands who visit it daily. There are some artists and
critics and others who are or who pretend to be highly dis-
pkased at the architectural qualities of the Government
Building, and some of the more fastidious among them
have condemned it as unsightly and unworthy of the har-
monious beauty of the Exposition. But not one of them
has found fault with it from a utilitarian point of view. It
is admirably adapted to the department exhibits. That is.
a great deal. It is situated directly north of the big Man-
ufactures Building, and cost the government $400,000. Ex-Supervising Architect
Windrim drew the original plans for the structure, and Supervising Architect Ed-
brooke finished it.

In the original World's Fair legislation a board of management for this ex-
hibit was created, consisting of a representative from each of the eight executive
departments, one from the Smithsonian Institution, and one from the United States
Fish Commission. That board is as follows:

Edwin Willits, Department of Agriculture, chairman; Wm. E. Curtis, De-
partment of State; Fred A. Stocks, Treasury Department; Maj. Clifton Comly,
United States Army, War Department; Commodore R. W. Meade, Navy Depart-
ment; A. D. Hazen, Postoffice Department; Horace A. Taylor, Department of the
Interior; Elijah C. Foster, Department of Justice; G. Brown Goode, Smithsonian
Institution and National Museum; Tarleton H. Bean, United States Fish Commis-

398

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

sion; F. T. Bicktord, Secretary and Executive Officer. The superintendent of the
exhibit is Capt. Aytoun, who takes pride in the fact that the Government build-
ing was actually complete and all the exhibits ready in advance of the opening of
the Fair. His department was the first to receive and the first toQinstal an exhibit.
The exhibits in the building occupy a floor space of more than 100,000 square feet,
to which the various annexes and the battleship, where the naval display is made,
add about as much more space.

In the center of the Government building stands a thirty-foot section of one
of the giant trees from Mariposa Big Tree grove, near the Yosemite Valley. It is
called the "John W. Noble." Four wide
corridors connect the main entrances with
the rotunda. Eight alcoves around the cen-
tral space are filled with collections of Co-
lonial relics made by the Board of Lady
Managers. Perhaps a great majority of the
visitors to the Government building enter it
at the southern portal. When a sight-seer
walks into the building at that door, which
looks toward the Manufactures and Liberal
Arts building, he sees upon his left the
dual exhibit of the Postoffice and Treasury
Departments — a full working postoffice in
active operation, receiving and depositing
mail, delivering letters, issuing and paying
money-orders, registering letters, and trans-
acting all the business that comes within
the scope of an office of the first class. This
model postoffice has been constructed with
a glass front to enable visitors to watch all
the processes. Near at hand is a complete
model of a mail car, in ivory and gold deco-
rations, and in the same section are models of all the curious old-time methods of
carrying the mail — by sleds with dogs, runners, and men on horseback. The Dead
Letter Office has made an exhibit of curious mail matter and wonderfully addressed
envelopes in this section; and everybody who goes sight-seeing through the building
stops to look at it, and it seems sometimes as if everybody who went through the
building stopped here at precisely the same time. They stand around the case from
three to ten deep and gaze, first in silent wonder, then with a gradually broadening
grin of comprehension, which in not a few cases deepens into the sheepish, half-
guilty look assumed by a person whose conscience has received a sudden and un-
expected jolt.

For this department wherein the unclaimed packages from the dead-letter
office are exhibited is almost as bad as a visible conscience to many of the visitors
to the Government building. A man may stand in front of it and merrily jest on

JOHN W. NOBLE, BIG TREE FROM CALIFORNIA.

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 399

i

the folly ot anyone sending snakes or chewing tobacco through the mails, and
underneath all his blithesome manner may lie the consciousness that it was only last
week that he himself sent molasses candy or cologne.

Never was there such a varied collection of odds and ends in so small a space
before. It ranges from alligators to layer raisins, and includes everything on earth,
in air, or sea. There are snakes and centipedes and tarantulas, and a skull or two
thrown in to add to the gilded horror of the thing. There are pistols of every
quaint and bygone pattern known to man, and daggers and knives sufficient for an
army of assassins. There are axes and hatchets and sleigh bells jumbled in side by
side with stuffed birds and rag babies. An owl perches serenely upon a human
skull, while in another case an Indian scalp is jostled by a china doll. In one case
is the evidence of a fruitless attempt to send a string of battered Chinese coins by
Uncle Sam's carriers. Perhaps it was a case of filial devotion on the part of some
almond-eyed washerman — who knows? In another case somebody's pounds of
tobacco wait unclaimed side by side with somebody else's bronze medals, and all
day long crowds gather and part, and their uneasy consciences ever bring them
back for just one more fascinated stare at the heterogenous collection.

In the Treasury Department exhibit are collections and views illustrative of
the work of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, of the Bureau of Engraving and Print-
ing, and of the Philadelphia Mint, which shows a stamping press in operation and
makes a display of its noted numismatic collection.

Across the broad aisle to the east is the elaborate exhibit made by the War
Department. In its ordnance section are all kinds of cannon, from the fifty-two ton
gun down to the smallest known howitzer, and a full line of gun-working machinery
in operation. The quartermaster's section occupies considerable space in the war
exhibit. Figures showing uniforms and methods for transportation and sustenance
of troops in vogue in the army are full of interest to the student of military affairs.
There is a full collection of the Civil War battle flags, and the Signal Service
exhibits a vivid reproduction of Arctic scenery.

Two years have been consumed by the United States Engineering Corps in
preparing for the exhibit of models of all the great American engineering works,
including dams, jetties and levees. These models are in the War Department
exhibit.

The east entrance to the building leads to the exhibits of the State Depart-
ment and the Department of Justice. The former shows all the great original his-
toric documents appertaining to the formation of the republic, portraits of distin-
guished American statesmen, including all the Presidents, and interesting originals
of treaties. On the right hand the Department of Justice has displayed large oil
portraits of the seven Chief Justices and of all the Attorney-Generals. Glass cases
contain some of the great legal documents that have made the country's history.
The documents in the Dred Scott decision are there.

Around at the north end of the building Uncle Jerry Rusk has shown what
the Agricultural Department has done for cereals, for cotton, silk and tobacco cul-
ture, and for the promotion of a knowlerge of entomology, oomology, and forestry.

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

4cr

The fish exhibit shows the method of taking fish, fish boats now in use and those
of more primitive forms, and a collection of uncommon fish from the deep sea. A
wonderful group of casts of fish made by a rare process forms a part of the exhibit.
The Interior Department exhibit includes displays from the Land Office,
Patent Office, and Geological Survey. The Land Office has furnished in its special
Alaskan exhibit one of the greatest ethnological collections on the grounds. Orig-
inal models of all the important American inventions are shown in the Patent Office
section, which adjoins the geological collection.

The great Navy Department exhibit is made in the United States coast-
line battleship, and other annexes provide room for the model army hospital, the

Indian school, a weather
bureau in full operation,
a life-saving station,
manned and equipped, a
lighthouse no feet high,
in which burns a 16,000
candle power lamp, and a
naval observatory. It is
gratifying to the superin-
tendent that the present
government exhibit is
more extensive than ever
before attempted at any
of the expositions. At
the Centennial the floor
space occupied was not

more than half of that taken up by the present exhibits. For comprehensiveness
and perfection the Smithsonian's display comes pretty nearly beating anything at
the Fair. There is a stuffed raccoon eating persimmons, and there is a fine spec-
imen of the earliest form of cornstalk fiddle. There is a special exhibit from
Alaska, and there is a fine walrus brought from Seal island especially for the Fair
by Capt. Healey of the revenue marine. It was the finest and biggest walrus the
captain could find. There are scores and scores of other animals as carefully se-
lected as these.

Birds too — lots of them — arranged on the same plans as the mammals.
There is an especially fine display of humming birds — the best in the world. Some
fine birds of paradise. The birds are shown at home, just like the beasts. There is
a hornbill family. Mrs. Hornbill sits on her nest in a hollow tree and the hole she
went in by has been walled up with clay by the crafty Mr. Hornbill, just a little
hole left for the old lady to feed through. The Smithsonian does not know whether
Mr. Hornbill does this to keep his wife from gadding about too much or whether
he does it to keep enemies from stealing her eggs. But they do know that he does
it, and they show him that way.

POLAR BEAR STATUARY ON BRIDGES.

402 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

Then there is a fine display of that provident bird the California woodpecker.
In the summer, when other birds are loafing about trilling merry roundelays, this
wise bird puts in his time drilling holes in dead trees. In the fall, when the other
birds are still trilling and having a good time, the woodpecker gathers acorns,
drives them into his supply of holes, and plugs them up. And in the winter, when
the other birds are shivering and wishing they had more tailfeathers, this foxy
woodpecker is just rolling in luxury and getting fat off his stores.

Then there is an extermination series shown. This is a classified array of
birds and beasts of species which are fast being exterminated. There is a easeful
of graceful wild pigeons prettily grouped. Not so very many years ago, says Mr.
Earll, men used to go out along the shores of Lake Michigan within the present
limits of Chicago and kill a bushel of these pigeons before breakfast. Now the
Smithsonian had a hard and long hunt to get ten of the pretty birds for the World's
Fair. Then there are the red and green Carolina paroquets. There were lots of
them in Illinois once, and only a few years ago they were a nuisance in Indian
territory. Now the institution has to send hunters clear down into the wilderness
of the everglades to get Carolina paroquets. A group of these birds is shown feed-
ing in the snow. People to whom a parrot is a parrot and always a tropical bird
will rail at this, but it is true to nature. The paroquet's habitat was once almost as
far north as the latitude of Chicago.

And there is a protective mimicry series of birds and beasts which change
color and appearance to be in accordance with their surroundings. The ptarmigan
of the north is a fair sample — white as the snow about him in winter, brown in
summer. Here is another novelty in this department — an exhibit of useful animal
products. The object is to illustrate the uses of the different parts of animals and
to show that exceedingly few parts fail to be used by man. It is all done in that
relentlessly classified way that allows no one to get muddled. First the appendage
on the skins of animals. There is hair of all sorts for brushes, wool, feathers for
decorative purpose and feather pictures, even feather flys for fish hooks — a long
array of most interesting specimens of articles made from hair, feathers, and wool.
The number will surprise you when you look. But that is not all. Fish scale
jewelry and all sorts of things made of tortoise sheli come within this class. Then
the skins of animals with the outer appendages — furs in a bewildering variety.
Then skins of animals without appendages — leather. All imaginable sorts of
leather, 250 distinct kinds of it, from a pair of boots made from human skin to
pouches made of snake hide. There is the back of an Indian chief's neck neatly
tanned and some bits of well cured skin from a young girl's breast.

Claws next, and horns and hoof jewelry, and trophies of claws, combs, and
all manner of trinkets from horns; gelatine and glue, and fertilizers from horns
and hoofs. Teeth — Here comes the ivories, an exhibition of themselves. There is
the largest elephant tusk in America. It is nearly 8 feet long and weighs 137
pounds. Elephant ivory, narwhal ivory, alligator ivory. Bones — Agricultural im-
plements, weapons, household utensils, fashioned by folks who are savage, poker
chips fashioned by folks who are not savage. Flesh — An infinite variety of meats,

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404 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

from Armour's extract of beef to dried shark's flesh. Viscera — Eskimo waterproof
suits made from the intestines of the walrus, catgut made from the interior economy
of sheep. Animal Fluids — Dried blood fertilizers, galls, and pepsins, artists' pig-
ments.

Now for ethnology. The Smithsonian illustrates the different linguistic
stocks, forty in number, of the American Indian. Its agents have within the last
two years taken photographs and sketches of the chiefs of the characteristic tribes
of each of these stocks. They have bought from each chief his best war toggery.
They have, when possible, taken plaster casts from life. They have reproduced
these chiefs exact in stature, features, complexion, dress. It is a work of the utmost
value, the last true records ot a dying race of men. There are groups, too, illus-
trating primitive Indian industries.

There is an exhibition of representative fishes, insects, and, invertebrates,
an exhibit of physical geology, showing cave formations in replica, volcanic for-
mations, and the glacial period. A small but striking array of gems and ornamental
stones of America is shown.

To get back to ethnology again there is a display showing the origin and
growth of music — 300 instruments of all ages oi: the world, another department
illustrating the primitive religions, and one showing the development of the potter's
art among the Japanese

When you visit the northwest corner of the Government building you will
think you are looking at the interior of Machinery Hall through the big end of a
spy glass. On every hand are multitudes of glistening machines that look as if
they had been built for liliputians.

These are the models sent from the Patent Office. You have heard of the
Patent Office; perhaps you have read a Patent Office report.

The exhibit is interesting, very. Chief Special Agent Ewing, who is at the
head of the Interior Department's show, says he thinks the Patent Office Bureau, is
the best of all.

What an array of queer little machines! Some of them are built rudely of
wood and in ill proportions. These are few. Some of them are of burnished steel
and brass, bright, in perfect proportions. Some of them are duplications in mina-
ture of appliances that everybody in the world knows about; some of them are con-
trivances nobody outside the Patent Office ever heard of. Every one of them is
the embodiment of an inspiration; every one shows something that was new and
original; every one of them has helped the world along a step.

Remember that your beneficent Uncle Samuel, whose display this is, never
goes to a world's fair just to amuse people. He always aims at instruction when he
exhibits. This display of the Patent Office is aimed to be instructive. The aim
has been carried out right well by three special agents, to whom the work was com-
mitted. The plan of the exhibit was to show the development of the arts and
sciences in America, and the influence of the Patent Office in promoting that devel-
opment. To this end the exhibit has been rigidly classified, and there is not one of

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

405

the 2,500 models in the long array of glass cases that was not placed there with a
definite purpose.

And the 2,500 models include about everything, from a rude Gallic reaping
machine, pushed by a bullock — date A. D. 70 — to a life-sized Hotchkiss revolving
cannon — date A. D. 1893. The Hotchkiss gun stands beside the desk of Principal
Examiner A. P. Greeley, who is in charge of the exhibit. He can whirl around
and set the thing going whenever he pleases.

This exhibit illustrates admirably the progress of America and of the world
in the chief arts and industries. Uncle Sam might nave picked from his 225,000
specimen inventions a lot of wonderful contrivances that would have shown how

far the Yankee inventive
genius can go after it gets
into crankiness. That
would have made a com-
ical show, but Uncle Sam
kept those at home. He
kept three of his best ex-
aminers busy for nearly
two years picking out his
best patent models, and
he spent $15,000 cleaning
and fitting up these mod-
els.

Result: Object lessons
in progress to be had no-
where else on earth — not
even at the United States
STATUARY ON BRIDGES— BUFFALO. Patent Office. There is

the matter of printing

presses. First, a model, accurately constructed, of the original printing press
that Guttenberg built. Then, models of several of the later types of hand presses,
then cylinder presses, and on into the ramifications of stop cylinders, two-revolu-
tion presses, and color presses. Finally, the Web perfecting press appears, a fine
series of models of every step in its development. Last and most modern, a full
working model, exquisitely finished, of Hoe's latest press, that prints 70,000 news-
papers an hour.

Go into other arts, for instance into the manufacture of textile fabrics, card-
ing and combing machines, spinning contrivances, looms, taken up at the very
dawn of civlization and brought right down to this day.

Incidental to this department is a full object history of the sewing machine.
There is the original model of the very first Howe machine of 1846. It seems to
consist largely of an abnormal fly wheel and a steel plate set with long teeth, upon
which the cloth was hung. Then, in succeeding machines, this toothed plate dis-
appears, and there are various devices for a continuous feed introduced. Every

406 HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

year shows a big or little improvement. There is a procession of sewing machines
from the days of your grandmother down to the time when you can get one as a
gift for subscribing to a story paper.

The very latest of them all is a queer-looking concern designed for the diffi-
cult work of sewing woven lining upon looped fabric. That machine is fed by a
plate full of long teeth, almost like the original Howe machine. There are sewing
machines exclusively for buttonholes, others for eyelets, machines that sew leather
two seams at a trip, machines that embroider, sew zigzag, and fasten on four-holed
buttons. There is one little one that you could put in your hat. It was made by
the Shields Company in 1890. It will do 5,000 stitches a minute.

The growth of that other American product, the typewriter, is shown. There
is the first sign of a typewriter, a huge and curious machine invented by William
Burt, in 1829. It was a practical machine and worked well, but it failed because
the people were not quite ready for typewriters in 1829. Burt sold the rights to his
invention in the New England States for $75. There is on record a letter from the
man who bought the rights, making a tremendous kick and demanding his money
back because there was no sale for the machine. Burt's original model was burned
in 1836. The present one was carefully built from specifications in the patents
signed by President Andrew Jackson.

There is the Thurber machine of 1836, and another one of a little later date
that looks like a hemisphere covered with knobs. The first Remington machine,
made in 1874, is as big as a full-grown hand organ, and its keys are like poker chips.

" Farmers," says Examiner Greeley, " sometimes look upon the patent office
as an enemy. We shall aim to show them how much the patent office has advanced
the science of agriculture." So there is an exceptionally fine display of inventions
in agricultural implements. In plows there is the original crooked stick plow, and
the first plow with a cast-iron mould board. This was invented by Neobald in
1797. It looks clumsy.

A tremendous row followed its first introduction in the market. Farmers
said it would poison the soil and kill all their crops, stocks, and families. But the
cast-iron plow kept improving. You can see every step of it in these models.

Perhaps the best example of the fin de siecle plow is a handsome bronze
silver model, on which Charles Anderson was granted letters patent, June 7, 1892.
It is a sulky gang plow with so many levers and springs that one thinks nobody but
a civil engineer could manage it. Seeders, planters, harrows, and reapers, are in
endless variety.

The reaper, too, starts right from the first. There is the rude ox-cart, with
the sickle attachment, that was used in Gaul in the first century. There is also the
first modern reaper, an English invention of 1799; another of 1825 that looks like
an over-grown lawn mower. The McCormick machine of 1831 was the first real
reaper, followed by table rake machines and self-binders.

Steam engines include the whirling steam globe of Hero, contrived ages ago,
and the crude attempts of James Watt. Hero's machine is shown in working model,
and of Watt's inventions there are fac-simile miniatures. A splendid showing of

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR. 407

detail improvements in engine building are shown, as well as the gradual perfection
of valves and eccentrics. There are models of the earlier locomotive engines that
are historic, and an array of grotesque monsters that never did get on the rails.
The climax is a working model of the cylinders and drivers of a mighty compound
locomotive, patented May 29, 1892, by Samuel Vauclain; air and gas engines, too,
including the famous Ericcson models; pumps, boilers, propellers, wood working
machinery. The model of the noted Blanchard gun-stock lathe, the wonder of its
day, is in this class.

And electrical inventions! There is the first attempt at a magnetic motor
invented by Joseph Henry in 1835, the original model of Faraday's induction coil,
-which was the basis of all later electrical progress, and the Davenport motor of
1837. This machine was practical, worked well, but was a failure because no one
had discovered how to produce an electric current by dynamos. It is only in the
, last few years that electricians have commenced to understand the full value of
Davenport's invention. Page's motor, which drove a locomotive from Washington
to Baltimore in 1854, is there too. After that comes the work of Morse, Edison,
Thompson, and Houston — it is a maze of electric ingenuity. Writing telegraphs
and multiplex telegraphs, telephones of a sort you never saw before, electric lamps,
big and little, motors, dynamos, and armatures. The electrical show will puzzle
anybody but an expert.

So much for the arts of peace. There is a corner for bloodthirsty ingenuity,
though. One great case is full of portable fire weapons. At one end is a wooden
tube wrapped with bamboo. It looks like a Roman candle. That is the first gun.
At the other end is a businesslike little weapon with a slender blue barrel and a
collection of mysterious steel knobs about the breech; the Kray-Jorgensen maga-
zine riflle, patented Feb. 21, 1893. ^ts steel pointed! bullet, three-tenths of an inch
in diameter, will find a man and slay him further away than you can see him. The
bullets can be fired so fast the barrel of the piece gets hot. The last gun is an inter-
esting study in progressive killing.

Early in the exhibit there is a quaint hand culverin, the earliest form of a
pistol. The man who fired it had to touch it off with a slow match. Next there is
a match lock of the time of Admiral Columbus, of whom you may have heard, and
next is a wheel lock of the sixteenth century. This machine has a long and exceed-
ingly big barrel, quaintly lacquered Upon its breech is a small steel wheel set
upon a spiral spring. The muskete r had to wind up this wheel with a big key.
When he touched the trigger, wh : went the wheel, grinding a brilliant shower of
sparks out of a flint set to bear pon its circumference.

This particular weapon was tried by the Germans in a little argument with
the French in 1855. It is said to have impressed the Gallic musketeers with aston-
ishment and disgust, just like the Teutonic, zundnadelgewehr, the famed needle
gun, acted upon their descendants some centuries later. You can see a fine speci-
men of the zundnadelgewehr a little further along the case after you have passed
the stages of the later flint locks and the old muzzle loaders. In the breech loaders,
the magazine guns, and the hammerless fowling pieces, you have the handiwork

408

HISTORY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR.

here of Sharp, and Berdan, and Maynard. Here is the famous and deadly Henry
rifle of 1860, the progenitor of the Winchester, and all the magazine guns.

Pistols next — some queer ones, too. There is the first Colt model that was
offerad for a patent. Across the aisle are cannon and great guns, Chinese wooden
cannon, and the big, graceful Dahlgren gun, that amazed the world in the '6o's.
Freaks in the shape of cannon include Lyman's accelerating cannon of 1857, which
has three little brass barrels that run into one, one by one. The model of the first
Catling is here too, a clumsy, squatty machine, and so on — why, one may stay in
the Government building a week and then not see all it contains.

A RAPID FIRING GUN.