THE STATUE OF LIBERTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7824, 18 December 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY.

EFFECT OF THE ILLUMINATION AT BEDLOW ISLAND. A correspondent, writing from New York under date November 2, Bays :—"The torch that Liberty holds high above the bay blazed out last night, and a flood of white light was thrown around the statue thousands of yards from Bcdlow'a Island. The goddess revealed her perfect outline, but was not sharply defined. Even at this distance the arm that holds the torch was in a shadow. Half a mile the podeetal loomed up bright aa if it was at a stone's throw, but the head and arm had disappeared, and there was a shadow over the etatue one mile distant. The glory of the pedestal eclipsed that of the figure. At the battery, which Is two and a-quartar miles from Bedlow's Islaud, the spectator who had not seen the goddess by day was not able to make out her outlines. Lieutenant Willis, who invented the syetem of lighting, said last evening that the lighting of the outside of the statue ia in an experimental state, and he expects to improve it until it will reveal the figure perfectly. Whether ib will be possible to illuminate so large a surface of bronze and produce a sharp effect without painting the bronze to a light oolour, is a question to be solved. Aβ early as 6 o'clock last night there was a steady stream of people going battery ward. It met and bumped into and jostled the crowd that was moving homeward from work, until the sidewalks in Broadway were jammed fall and overflowed into the gutters. There was an open place kept cleared in the rear of the bittery where the fireworks were t > be let off. The crowd, as it arrived, dashed vainly against a strong cordon of policemen, which had been drawn around this reserved space, and was jammed in close against the line and quickly spread baok in a compact mass. Just before the hour to light up the statue, steamers arrived in the darkness and took up positions in a great semicircle around the island from the southwest to the northeast. First one atearcer set up screeching, then another, until there was an unearthly rumpus, so deafening that peoplo on tho island had to yoll to make each other understand what they were saying.

As the tiny spark in the torch grew and grow, until it flashed across the bay. a ahowor of rockets, bombs, fiery mountains of green, yellow, blue and white, with snapping fiery serpents, spattered about at intervals in the air. Tho display on the battery did not begin until the two other spectacles had closed. It opened with a flight of 1000 rockets, all let off in a bunch. This was followed by a flight of fireworks similar to those on Governor's and Bedlow'a Islands, with the exception that a long etarry procession of balloons, made to represent the Stars and Stripes and the Tricolor, was sent trailing high in the air over Long Island way, dropping red and green fireballs aa they went. The torch was kept alivo all niyhc. It will be lighted every night for a week. The present system is only on trial for that time.