THE PANAMA EXPOSITION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2588, 9 October 1915, Page 13

THE PANAMA EXPOSITION

•VIEWS OF A NEW ZEALAND VISITOR. To do justice;to the Panama-Pacific Exposition, according to Mr. Robert' Bell,. of Ashburton, who_ has just returned from America, orie. would have to "occupy a volume." Mr. Bell was a New Zealand delegate to the World's Press Congress, and consequently had excellent opportunities to see the big show. ' .

"The buildings,'.' he says,, "in elegance of design aiid beauty of finish speak eloquently of : the imaginative and creative power of the man who, planned them. They combine the mystery and the awe of the Orient with the practicalness of the Occident, Indeed, the visitor to the Exposition from the vantage ground of, say, the heights of the Presidic, is privileged to view at one comprehensive glance the architecture of the ancient world—Greece, Rome, Egypt, and India—and .of the modern world, \nth its utilitarian but far less impressiveness of style.- By day, this vast congerie of buildings, with graceful towers glittering with jewels, spires reaching far up into the everlasting, blue California?! .skies,, with domes and minarets interspersed between, fills up the : imag* ination of the beholder; by. nighty lit" up by subdued and at .the ; same time brilliant colourings, they bewilder and dazzlfi him 1 with tlieir magnificence and effulgence of beauty. . . , "And the content's of these buildings come : from the ends of the earth. France has sent of her tapestries and her fashions, Italy her art treasures in marble and on canvas, the peoples of Scandinavia have vied with the peoples of tho, Far East in presenting, the products"'of' their/factories, and of their handicrafts, the young, and virilo nations of the .British Empire—Canada; Australia, New Zealand —give examples of the products of their' soil—developed and . undeveloped—and of their struggling attempts at manufacture to enable them to be self-contained communities. ' • ' / ,

. "Within the gates of'this World's Fair the visitor, if he is a man of discernment, if he has eyes that see, ears that hear, a mind to absorb will receive an all-round , education which should be of lifelong benefit."