THE GREAT PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL TOWER.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1182, 5 June 1874, Page 3

THE GREAT PHILADELPHIA CENTENNIAL TOWER.

The Scientific American contains a sketch or engraving of a centennial tower 1000 ft high, with which it. is proposed to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of American independence, in connection with the Great Exhibition of 1576. This sketch or engraving stands in the foreground of the picture, and is grouped with the Pyramids of Egypt, Strasburg Minster, St. Peter's of Rome, St. Paul's of London, the Capitol at Washington, Trinity Church in New York, and other large edifices, with a view of showing their relative heights. The Tower of Babel is not there, probably owing to the uncertainty of its architectural construction, but we are approvingly reminded that its builders said, " Let us go and make us a name," and that it is in every way fitting for the Americans to imitate the example of the immediate descendants of Noah.

What befel this pile of brick and mortar when it reached the height of 15Gft gives the projectors of the Philadelphia Centennial Tower no great concern. They rather glory in the fact that they will be able to carry their structure Ssoft higher towards " heaven" than what we have been taught to regard as a stupendous piece of fol.y, and that they shall be able to substitute iron for bricks in its construction, and bolts and screws and girders for mortar or slime. Indeed, they seem to make it their boast that their Centennial Tower although small as compared with the mighty works of nature—the vast peaks cf the Himalayas, for instance—will as far overtop the loftiest spires or domes on earth ;>s the giant trees of California overtop the tallest maple or elms, and that they shall gain as much in their structure over all others in durability as in height, on account of the material employed. Its greater liability to be struck by lightning does not apf ear to have occurred to them, or is not at any rate hinted at.

Messrs Clark, Keeves, and Co. are the designers of the proposed Centeunial Tower, and it is to be executed at their Phoenixville Bridge Works, Philadelphia, of American wrought iron throughout. It is to be 520 ft higher than the great pyramid of Cheops ; 532 ft higher than Strasburg Minster ; 513 ft higher than the dome of St. Poor's Koine, Michael Angelo's greatest work ; 54G higher thai} the Chephren pyramids, the successor to that of Cheops; G3sft higher than St Paul's, Loudon, Christopher Wren's masterpiece; 713 ft higher than the Capitol at Washington, and it is to be circular in its form, with a base of 150 ft in diameter, diminishing to 30ft at the top. Through its entire length, there is to be a central tube, with four elevators capable of earning 50Q persons up and down per hour, at the rate of three minutes up and five minutes down, and around the central tube there is to be a spiral staircase for such as prefer that mode of ascending and descending. The estimated cost of the fabric is i?l,000.OOO, say £200,000 to £250,000 sterling, aud the time to bo occupied in its construction one year. Its location is to bo Fairmount park, in close proximity to the grounds on which the buildings fs>r the Great Centennial Exhibition are being erected. It will be the loftiest structuro ever built by man, " designed by American engineers, reared by American mechanics, and constructed of material, purely the produce of American soil." But, cut l>oiio $ Their answer to that question, by anticipation, is that the Americans may " make themselves a nauio." Nothing more.