THE WORLD'S FAIR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 102, 4 May 1904, Page 3

THE WORLD'S FAIR.

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND VISITORS.

NEW YORK, May 2. Three hundred thousand visitors have arrived at the St Louis Exposition. It is considered equal to the combined attractions of Paris, Chicago, and Buffalo Exhibitions. It comprises a thousand buildings, 14 magnificent exhibit places, and cascade (with three huge waterfalls) illuminated by electricity. A beautiful feature is a replica of the Great Trianon at Versailles, and an arena for Olympic games sealing 25,000 people. Fifty foreign Governments made elaborate displays. Great Britain, Canada, and New Zealand are represented. The greatest interest is taken in Queen Victoria's Jubilee presents shown at the Exhibition.

(The Great Trianon was built as a place of refuge by Louis XIV., of France. There is also a Versailles a Petit Trianon.)

Tho World's Fair will commomorate the centennial of the purchase of the great Louisiana, territory by the United States of America from France. That purchase was a great historical event in the lifetime of the Ilepublic. About one million square miles of land was acquired at a price of 15,000,000 1 dollars, and the area of the United States was more than doubled. The exposition is both national and international. It will present in a special degree! and in a most comprehensive, manner the history, resources and development of the States and territories lying within the boundaries of the Louisiana purchase, showing what.it was and what it is, what it contained and what is produced in 1803 ; what it contains and what it produces to-day. It will show the history, development, and resources of tho possessions of the United States, and it will make life and movement its distinguishing and cs'pecial characteristics. It will embody and illustrate the latest and most advanced progress in the employment of the energies of nature. ,It will be up-to-date in the use of all new motive forces, and be fully abreast with science in the utilisation of every novel invention or discovery that has practical value. I[t wiil exhibit the arts and industries, the methods and processes of manufacture of the whole world ; it will gather the products oi the soil, mine, forest, and sea from the whole earth. It will comprehend man in his full twentieth century development ; it will exhibit a congress of races, presenting particularly the barbarious and semi-barbarious people of the wide world as nearly ijs possibly in their ordinary and native environments. The exposition is to occupy as much space as the expositions of London, Paris, Chicago, Melbourne and Buffalo combined, and the cost will be more than all of these famous displays put together. The United .States Government appropriated 5,000,000 dollars for the fair, and it has also authorised a loan to the management of the exposition of 1,600,000 dollars additional. The City of St. Louis has contributed ">.000,000 dollars, and the various States and territories of the American Union an additional 10,000,000. The value of the exhihitß makes up the balance of the enormous expenditure involved.