This is the account of the first conception of the Exhibition:  ``Who was giving the idea of the Exhibition?  The first idea of an Exhibition of the Centenary belongs in reality not to anybody.  It was in the air since several years, when divers newspapers, in 1883, bethought them to consecrate several articles to it, and so it became a serious matter.  The p 201period of incubation (brooding) lasted since 1883 till the month of March 1884; when they considered the question they preoccupied them but about a National Exhibition.  Afterwards the ambition increased.  The ministery, then presided by Mr. Jules Ferry, thought that if they would give to this commercial and industrial manifestation an international character they would impose the peace not only to France, but to the whole world.’’

The Eiffel Tower gives occasion for some particularly fine writing:  ``In order to attire the stranger, to create a great attraction which assured the success of the Exhibition, it wanted something exceptional, unrivalled, extraordinary.  An engineer presented him, Mr. Eiffel, already known by his considerable and keen works.  He proposed to M. Locroy to erect a tower in iron which, reaching the height of three hundred metres, would represent, at the industrial sight, the resultant of the modern progresses.  M. Locroy reflected and accepted.  Hardly twenty years ago, this project would have appeared fantastic and impossible.  The p 202state of the science of the iron constructions was not advanced enough, the security given by the calculations was not yet assured; to-day, they know where they are going, they are able to count the force of the wind.  The resistance which the iron opposes to it.  Mr. Eiffel came at the proper time, and nevertheless how many people have prophetized that the tower would never been constructed.  How many critics have fallen upon this audacious project!  It was erected, however, and one perceives it from all Paris; it astonishes and lets in extasy the strangers who come to contemplate it.’’

The figures attached to the fountain under the tower are comically described as follows:—­

``Europe under the lines of a woman, leaned upon a printing press to print and a book, seems deeped in reflections.

``America is young woman, energetic and virginal however, characterising the youth and the audacies of the American people.

``Asia, the cradle of the human kind, represents the volupty and the sensualism.  Her posture, the expression of her figure, p 203render well the abandonment of the passion with the oriental people.

``Africa represented by a figure of a woman in a timid attitude, is well the symbol of the savage people enslaved by the civilisation.

``Australia finally is figured by a woman buttressed on herself, like an animal not yet tamed, ready to throw itself on its prey, without waiting to be attacked. . . .