A Tall Tower.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 168, 4 September 1886, Page 8

A Tall Tower.

A colossai/ tower 1,000 feet in height will ba not only the principal attraction of the Exposition, but the moat daring work ever ondortaken by Any engineer. The pyramid* of Egypt, St Peter's, the Washington. Monument, all these wonderful elevations will seem the work of dwarfs beside this massive iron construction, on whose summit will float the French flag. This tower consists of four iron pyramid?, placed 360 feet one from the other, each pyramid being 50 feet square at the base. At the first story, 250 ft above the ground, these pyramids are united by a glass-covered gallery, 50 feet wide, which makes the tour of the construction. The gallery will be ueed for soirees, etc. At the second story is a room 100 feet square, covered by glass, At the summit is a cupola, with an exterior balcony. There will be placed the electrical apparatus destined to light the exposition. , Each pyramid -will have an elevator constructed in the same manner as the Swiss railways. It is startling to think of an elevator taking one seven times as high as the Column Vendome, but there will pc no danger. The elevator will bedrawn by a cable, but steel grappling hooka are to be arranged in such a manner that, if the cable breaks, the elevator will remain suspended. There has never been an accident on the Righi, and M. Eiffel, who is the originator of this stupendousscheme, cays his elevators will be even more secure than any yet constructed. A vertical elevator will also take passengers from the tower. When at the top we can admire the night, Paris and the millions of lights. In pleasant weather we can see the most, splendid panorama' that human thought can imagine. Above the hills which with their'green foliage surround Paris we shall see Compiegne, Kheime, Fountainebleu, Chartres, Dreux, Creil, the villages lost in the woods and the rivers trailing their silver ribbon across the valleys. But this metallic -tower will not be built; expressly for the curious ; it will render 'service to Bcienc& ' In the copula will be installed telescopes, pluviometres, anemometreß, etc. ' Astronomical and meteorological observations will be made under new conditions, and' experiments which have heretofore been impossible can, for fine first time, 'be attempted. Atmospheric electricity, the velocity of the wind, the transparency of theair, 1 Foucault'a experimWt to prove that the earth -revolves, aIL can be etudied. Spectroscopes ' for the ' analysis 'of ; the "light of the sun?and stars will be placed under' the dome. '-A- study equally interesting will 7 be that of the variation of temperature -with' altitude. For the public a very strange sight 1 will be the effect of lightning and the deviation of a tailing b«dy. , ' 'The' tower will be surrounded by a light-ning-rod, but in iteelf the tower will form an immense lightning-rod, by which will descend formidable quantities of electricity. In "a thunderstorm everyone in 'the tower will, be struck by lightning, although unconscious of and receiving no injury from this 1 electric shocks - When the night is 'black with clouds, from' the foot of the tower one can see a continuous sparkling fall of lightning. To^prqduce'thafc effect a lightning rod will'be placed on the summit of the tower, and the conductor will be interrupted for the space, of two yards'. " The lightning: will thus jump from one section to ' another, with continual explosions. At tlie JaaBB," j of tnV'iower tv t u on ' immeneeblocks of marble; inscriptions recalling the hiatoryof the oeritury <wuT be F engraved in gilded letters. • There will be* found extraet'erfronr the 1 •* Declaration of "the Eights of Man," the names of illuatrious Republicans, etc.'* '' The? weight of this tower will not r be • greater ' than ! - tonfy< almost endugh s iron to v mak«a'railwayi J f rom Paria to St.> Gerhiain^by way.df vVereailles. The coit will be about $1,000,000, 'but the in-/ ventorofthißglgantic work 'asks only the 'adnnistion few for ten years to ipay all theexpen»©« of the biilding. ■ kw^M