We have been asked to examine and comment upon several properties that have been suggested to your Board as sites for the Exposition.

Our report of the 12th inst. on Jackson Park having been given by your [178]Board to the public, and having been generally thought, as we are informed, to be wholly unfavorable to that site, we would like to point out that such an understanding of it must be due to the fact that it was written for a body of gentlemen presumed to be specially well informed in the premises, and to be fully aware of many circumstances and of many considerations with which the public could not be expected to be familiar.

Inasmuch as we shall have occasion in this communication to recall some matters of that report, and as you have intimated to us that what we are now to write will probably also be made public, we shall, with your leave, here mention some of the facts and considerations to which we have referred, and shall throughout, keep less strictly within the lines of your formal requirement upon us than we otherwise should.

We entered upon the examination of the Jackson Park site with the understanding derived, as we think, from conversation with several of your Directory, that we were to take for granted that room would be made by filling out on the Lake Front, for the larger part of the Exposition, but that a portion of it, calculated to occupy 70 or 80 acres, was desired to be placed within the unimproved territory of Jackson Park. We understood further from conversation with three of the South Park Commissioners, their Engineer and Superintendent, that these gentlemen if not fully assured, were strongly inclined, to the conviction, as in their place we know that we should be, that, in their capacity as Trustees for a property set apart by law for another purpose, they could not justly allow either the woody part of it to be cleared, except as might be necessary to the opening of a given line of Park road through it, or that part of it which had been improved and given to public use as a Park, to be built over, or any part of it to be so treated that the cost of fitting it for its assigned future purpose, would be increased.

Assuming these and other considerations to be familiar to those to whom this report was addressed, we did not in our report, think it necessary to specifically refer to them.

It had been within our knowledge, gained twenty years before, in wading through the site of Jackson Park that, topographically, it was a morass, divided by a few low, narrow sand dunes; one-third of it below the surface of the Lake at ordinary stages of the water, and the greater part of it subject to be occasionally flooded. We had regarded with admiration, the characteristic Chicago audacity of the proposition to divide a World’s Fair between such a situation, and another more than six miles distant from it, on which land was to be created for the purpose, by displacing a part of Lake Michigan. We fell heartily into the bold spirit of the project, and considered that, if carried out creditably, the result would be in itself, for many, a most interesting circumstance of the Fair. In this spirit we took up the problem which your request presented to us; considered with care certain elements of the case to which no reference was made in our report, and of which we have seen no account publicly taken, and gave you our conclusions without a doubt that they would be [179]considered highly favorable to the proposition. We had at the time no thought of any other site as in competition with that of Jackson Park, and said nothing with an intention to lessen the favor with which we believed it to be regarded by your Board.

In the reading of anything that we have written, or may write on the subject of a site for the Fair, it will be reasonably borne in mind, we think, that as to many questions which a discussion of it involves, members of your Board are known to us to be much better informed, and much better qualified to form sound opinions than we can be. Such is the case, for example, with regard to questions of transportation; to questions of financial management; and to questions of civil and mechanical engineering, except perhaps, with reference to matters of drainage and improvements bearing upon agricultural, horticultural and sanitary requirements. If we seem to express opinions on such questions, it is because it is difficult at an early stage of discussion to distinctly separate them from others; but all such opinions are presented tentatively, with perfect deference to those that may be held, or obtained from other experts, by your Board. It is not unreasonable to suppose, we think, that our counsel has been sought because we are known to have not discreditably sustained various important public responsibilities, through which we have been trained in habits of study of a special class of questions, to which few men are often called to give much consideration. It is to be assumed that you want from us the results of such study, technical, proper and special to our profession.

We trust that we may be pardoned if we add to these observations that something of what we are told has been said in comment upon our report of the 12th inst., indicates that the great gravity and the prodigious difficulties of the task that has been placed upon your Board, is by those quoted, most inadequately appreciated, and that we may also be allowed to express our conviction that to the interests respectively, of South Chicago, of West Chicago and of North Chicago, it is of much less importance that the Fair should be established in this place or in that, than that the Fair wherever centered, should be a grand success for all Chicago. It is to be desired also, let us say, that it should be better understood than it yet seems to be by some of your fellow citizens, that the Fair is not to be a Chicago Fair. It is a World’s Fair, and Chicago is to stand before the world as the chosen standard bearer for the occasion of the United States of America. All Chicago can afford to take nothing less than the very best site that can be found for the Fair, regardless of the special local interests of one quarter of the City or another.

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There are certain lines of reflection in part, but not wholly, of a technical character, which, in expectation that this paper will be given to the public, it may be desirable that we should recall, by way of preface to some parts of what we shall have later to say on the question of a site.

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With the utmost wisdom that can be applied to the purpose, it is impossible, three years in the advance of the opening of the World’s Fair, to forecast with much approach to exactness for what objects of interest it will be finally desirable that space should have been prepared; nor can it be expected that among the propositions that will come pressing for consideration late in the period of preparation, there will not be some of a highly interesting character that cannot be brought within any fixed scheme that has been previously adopted, and with reference to which the general lay-out of the Fair has been devised.

Again, with the utmost effort to secure simplicity of arrangement in the layout of the premises, the great body of visitors will find themselves overwhelmed with what will appear to them an enormous, heterogeneous and confused multitude of objects inviting their examination. It will often in consequence occur, that visitors give all the time they can to the Fair; wear themselves out in wandering from part to part of it, and at last depart, having lost the opportunity of examining just those articles which, but for this difficulty, they would have been most interested to closely observe.

Upon such considerations as these, it is to be held most desirable in the organization of a World’s Fair;

First: That a skeleton plan for the arrangement of its important, assured and plainly classifiable elements should be fixed at an early period, and that this skeleton plan should, in its main leading feature, be as simple as possible.

SECOND: That outside of this first formed-skeleton plan, there should be a liberal and, to some extent, an elastic, margin for unclassifiable and eccentric, newly-arising and belated contributions; and also for out of door contributions which, from their nature, will be best placed apart from all others.

Considerations of this class would seem to have a particular force in application to a World’s Fair in which it is expected that the bulk and variety of the articles exhibited, will be larger than in any held before, and which, from its locality, is likely to draw in an extraordinary way, from regions, the people of which are generally supposed to be given more than those of Europe or the Atlantic States to move without prolonged preparation, or in any exactly controlled, precise, punctual and predetermined way.

If so, it may reasonably be laid down, other things being equal, that that site will be best for this Exposition, first: which presents the least difficulty to the arrangement at a comparatively early day of a central series of large buildings. Second: that permits provision to be made at a later period for a large number of additional features, especially such additional features as cannot be well brought within the central series. It should not be necessary to set these down at all at hap-hazard. Places should be ready for them, arranged to be approached on lines extending outward from the central series, so that a [181]convenient and agreeable degree of compactness and orderliness will, after all, be secured for the Exposition as a whole.

Considerations of this class, being duly recognized, it is next to be borne in mind that the principle buildings of a World’s Fair, will desirably be placed in such relations one to another, one to all and all to each, that they may not be only individually fine, stately and imposing but also be, as a collection, fine, stately and imposing. This being recognized, it is next to be considered, that these terms, “fine, stately and imposing,” refer to an effect to be produced on the imagination; and that the principle thus established, carries with it this other principle, that in the choice of a site with reference to a desirable disposition of buildings, an artistic motive must be brought studiously, systematically and constantly into play. Not simply in respect to the collection of buildings abstractly considered, but with respect to all their surroundings and all the associated elements of the premises.

There are various methods in which this principle may be applied. Among all such methods that should be chosen to which the site to be occupied will, because of its natural conditions, most ideally lend itself. The best arrangement, for instance, for an elevated, or broken, highly undulating site, would not be the best for a flat site. An arrangement which would be most impressive when seen against a mountain or a forest background, would not be the best where the upper outline of the group was to be seen against the sky.

Having offered these observations as imperfectly suggestive of a few general principles applicable to the problem which we cannot now undertake to fully explain or sustain by argument, we may hope that what has been said will have been sufficient to indicate the character of a class of considerations, that in popular discussion of the subject, is apt not to be duly appreciated. With further regard to the same class of considerations, the caution may be offered that it would be a poor course to beautify the premises of a World’s Fair by simply distributing through them, pretty objects in any quantity, or by arranging these pretty objects with a view to combinations or compositions that are to be beautiful in themselves.

On the contrary, modeling of the ground surface, and planting and all other operations of the class commonly called decorative, should be determined with one supreme object, viz: the becomingness; the becomingness of everything that may be seen as a modestly contributive part of a grand whole; the major elements of which whole will be the towering series of the main exhibition structures. In other words, the ground, with all it carries, before, between and behind the buildings, however dressed with turf, or bedecked with flowers, shrubs or trees, fountains, statues, bric-a-brac and objects of art, should be one in unity of design with the buildings; should set off the buildings and should be set off, in matters of light and shadow and tone, by the buildings.

It will be seen that all this class of considerations lead toward the [182]conclusion that the choice of a site should be largely influenced by the facility with which the natural conditions of the locality will be favorable to a great, consistent effect on the imagination, in the buildings and in all that is to come under the observation of visitors both in looking toward and in looking from the buildings.

We will simply add to this attempt to indicate the leading artistic principle that should be kept in view in the selection of a site, this other, that if it is possible to associate with the grandeur of architecture in a Great Exhibition; an object of natural grandeur, more is thus to be gained than by the most elaborate and costly artificial decorations in the form of gardening features, terraces, fountains and statues, that it is possible for the mind of man to devise, or the hand of man to carry out. Nor, however desirable, is it necessary to the realization of great value in this respect that these natural features should be in such pictorial composition with the architectural group, as would be the case, for example, if the group were to be seen against a mountain-side and with some correspondence between its outlines and the outlines of the mountain. Simple proximity, bringing into association natural grandeur with artificial grandeur, would be of great value. To come at once to the local application of this precept, there is at Chicago, but one natural object at all distinctively local, which can be regarded as an object of much grandeur, beauty or interest. This is the Lake. With regard to the value of this possession of the city in respect to the Exposition of 1892, it is to be considered that the inhabitants of the larger part of the United States, of Canada and of Mexico, from which visitors will come to the Fair, will, until they arrive here, never have seen a broad body of water extending to the horizon; will have never seen a vessel under sail, nor a steamboat of half the tonnage of those to be seen hourly passing in and out of Chicago harbor; and will never have seen such effects of reflected light or of clouds piling up from the horizon, as are to be enjoyed almost every summer’s day on the lake margin of the city. Your visitors from Europe will never have seen a body of fresh water comparable in majesty to your lake. It is to be considered also, that Chicago itself, is, in its history and in its commerce, to be a most interesting, perhaps the most interesting, of all the exhibits of the Exposition. What would have been its history, what its commerce, what its interest to the world, if Chicago were without this Lake?

We do not lay it down that such considerations as these, recommending you to make the Lake a part of the Fair, should prevent the consideration of any site not commanding an unbroken view of the Lake; but we point out that any such other site must have marked superiority in some other highly important respects, to place it at all in competition with sites upon the Lake.

Yet another word in regard to preliminary considerations. The success of the contemplated Exposition, may turn greatly upon what may be sufficiently suggested by the term “spectacular effect.” This spectacular effect depends upon elements of mass and outline and broad effects of color. Applied decorations, when used to combine, strengthen, sustain and emphasize the [183]general scheme in this respect, are greatly to be valued; but used except in perfect subordination to it, they are greatly to be deprecated.

It is so rare under ordinary circumstances, that this consideration comes into play in any important way in respect to the base and flanks of great buildings, and the consequent tendency to slight it when studying questions of architecture and landscape, is so strongly fixed in most men’s minds, that we feel that we cannot too strongly urge the importance of its application to questions which are now even under consideration by your Board. If the combination of circumstances which you are able to establish, produces unity of spectacular effect in a great way, the Exhibition will have won a prestige that will carry it successfully through not a few minor insufficiencies.

With reference to this principle, we quote from an exceedingly intelligent review of the Paris Exposition of 1889, by Mr. W. C. Brownell.

As a spectacle the striking feature of the Exposition was the Exposition itself, the ensemble, the general coup d’oeil; its unity, in a word. The advantageous side of the French passion for subordinating the detail to the mass was never better illustrated. One need only think of the enormous scale on which this was done, the dimensions of the elements of the gigantic organism, to appreciate how grandiose must have been the effect of composition, scrupulously manifest in every part. Such an effect is the end and aim of whatever is truly pictorial, of course. And such a picture as the Champ de Mars and the Trocadero in this sense presented can never before have been composed. The sense was constantly impressed by it, even in moments of special study of particular exhibits. Interesting as these were in detail, there was always something more interesting, more absorbing, namely: the whole to which they contributed. ############################ One felt that everything had been arranged, considered, combined, composed, as I say;—that nothing had been left to itself, to the inequalities of the ground, to the necessities of hampered means, to the chances of conflicting interests, to the whims of individuals or the notions of cliques; to the haphazard of independent initiative and private enterprise. This is the first, and perhaps the most essential, effect of a work of art, and an International Exhibition is, as a whole, a work of art or it is nothing; constructed picturesqueness on the one hand, or a mere convenient medium for the display of industrial and aesthetic objects on the other, can never attain the effect of unity which gives to a composition its attractiveness and its independent raison d’etre. # # # # # This effect of unity was powerfully assisted by the general excellence of all the structural details of the Exposition. There were no jars, no discordant notes of eccentric taste, nothing to break the agreeable uniformity of a high level of competence and cultivation. # # # # # # There are three disadvantages against which, as compared with the French, we shall (in America) be compelled to struggle. One is the disadvantage of possessing no site which can be compared for fitness with that which Paris possesses en permanence, and the impossibility of our constructing one. A fit site for a Universal Exhibition is not a belvedere; nor are topographical inequalities and sylvan potentialities pertinent features of such a site. We have been talking for the past few months as if they were; but the moment we get down to practicality we shall discover that # # # # # # a “site,” and a site for a Universal Exposition are two different “things.” (Scribner’s Monthly for January, 1890.)

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The consideration that we have last aimed to present, taken by itself, would lead, of course, to the conclusion that a single site is more desirable for a World’s Fair than two or more sites. But, if there are local reasons compelling your Board to divide the World’s Fair of 1892 into two or more parts, then it is obvious in planning arrangements for each, it is particularly important that respect for this consideration should be the more carefully maintained, and that motives likely to interfere with its operation, should be kept under constraint.

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We have now to consider the several sites you have asked us to examine. Not, we say again, with a view to an expression of opinion as to which of them offers the largest advantages, on the whole, for your purpose; but as to their comparative value in respect to special desiderata of the Fair.

THE JACKSON PARK SITE: Since our report upon this site of the 12th inst., we have learned from the public journals that a good deal of apprehension is felt, that the larger part of the Exposition cannot be quite safely and well provided for on the central Lake-Front as presumed in our original instructions; and though these have not been amended, we think it best to take this doubt into consideration. We believe there is no question that a part of the Lake-Front will be available. If the policy of your Board should be modified as thus suggested, a much larger area for building might be wanted at Jackson Park than we had been led to have in view in framing our former report.

As we pointed out verbally to your Committee on Buildings and Grounds before that report was made, a large amount of additional land for the purposes of the Fair could, in several ways, be obtained without a wasteful destruction of the standing wood or interference with the plans of the South Park Commissioners. We have been told, for example, although not, perhaps, with authority, that 100 acres or more of low-lying private land could be had in connection with the Park site on the South. The locality is a swamp, and would require filling to a depth of at least three feet to make it at all available. The cost of so filling it would not be forbidding, and the increased value of the land, after the Exposition, because of the filling, would probably be a full return for its cost. As we also advised you verbally on the 12th inst., the strip of land called The Midway Plaisance, between Jackson and Washington Parks, might be so cleared of its present standing wood, as to allow a building or buildings to be set upon it three-quarters of a mile in aggregate length, and 400 feet wide. These buildings having been removed at the end of the Fair, the land would be as well adapted as it is at present for carrying out the plans of the South Park Commissioners. As we have also advised you before, 70 acres, probably 80, of the open Green of Washington Park could be well used for buildings of the Exposition without permanent detriment to that Park. Certain other land in [185]Washington Park to the extent of 5 to 10 acres, might also be used. Further, we have been informed, but again, not in any authoritative way, that the stables and race course of the Washington Park Club, lying a short distance to the South of Washington Park, with some adjoining land, might be rented for the live-stock department of the Exhibition. This would be a detached ground and over a mile and a half from the principle buildings near the Lake shore.

The obvious objection to this and to all suggestions that so far as we know, have been made for connecting much additional land with that of Jackson Park, is the extremely straggling, disjointed and incoherent character of the arrangement to which it would lead, and the entire disregard it would involve for the advantages which we have shown to lie in a compact and well-organized primary and central trunk scheme, with looser, but still compact, radial ramifications. Doubtless expedients could be adopted for lessening this objection in some respects. As, for example, by bringing all the different parts into connection by some form of cheap and rapid transit. But a very serious set-back to the success of the Exposition would thus be only in a measure mitigated; by no means removed.

We have been asked by a member of your Board, to explain why we did not propose that any of the land in the Southwestern part of the Jackson Park site should be occupied by the Fair. In the first place we have shown how 60% more floor room could be provided than your scheme as it then stood, required; in the second place, it appeared to us that a great advantage for an effective grouping of the large buildings of the Jackson Park division of the Fair would be lost if a part were planted near the shore, and another part three-quarters of a mile distant, and on a line diagonally to the frontage of the first; in the third place, the body of wood in that quarter of the Park is, after the view the site commands of the Lake, the most valuable property of the Park, and the most valuable property of the locality; and in studying the landscape and spectacular capabilities of the site, we had reckoned largely upon it; in the fourth place, as no suggestion had been made to us that room for the Live Stock Department would be wanted on Jackson Park, we presumed that some other place was had in view for it, in which the devastation of a body of well grown trees would not be necessary. Finally it occurred to us that if this was not the case, and the question was an open one, flat ground contiguous to the Lake and not more than three feet above its ordinary surface was not that which a good shepherd would choose for the sojourn, even for a month, of a valuable flock. We understand that the Lake may possibly be at a higher level in the Summer of 1893 than it is at present. This consideration dictated the line or two given to the subject at the close of our former report.

We do not understand that the proposition to plant the whole Fair at and near Jackson Park has even been entertained by your Board; nor that reasons are now required of us why such a proposition should not be entertained. To what we have here said, and what was said in our former report, we have therefore only to add, that should your Board adopt Jackson Park with any [186]necessary annexations as a site for a considerable part of the Fair, our study of the conditions to be dealt with, has led us to think it would not be impossible to treat the land unoccupied by buildings in a manner that, without marked violence to nature, or much apparent effort, would produce results of a pleasing becoming character, such as have not hitherto been aimed at in World’s Fairs, and that would be refined, interesting and attractive.

GARFIELD PARK SITE: On the West side of the City near Garfield Park, a body of land has been considered which would be large enough for all purposes of the Exposition. It would allow a compact symmetrical arrangement of the buildings. The soil is a very retentive heavy clay, but susceptible of drainage and of a degree of amelioration in other respects. Compared with the Jackson Park site, its advantages from our point of view, are principally, that it would require no filling or dredging operations; that it would be undivided by any water course, and that the arrangement of buildings would not be complicated by such regard for trees or other local circumstances as should be had in dealing with the Jackson Park site, because of its dedication to Park purposes.

In comparison with Jackson Park, the disadvantages of the Garfield Park site are that the country about it is generally unwooded, flat and monotonous, that the eye ranges from it to a great distance over an unattractive landscape. Touching this point of the question, it may be observed that as to beauty of prairie scenery, depending on breadth and simplicity of landscape elements, and an horizon unbroken by distant bodies of wood following sluggish water courses, and a general expression of nature in pleasing repose; as to landscape qualities of this order, they no longer exist in the outskirts of Chicago, having been everywhere disturbed or wholly broken up by introduced, entirely discordant elements of landscape.

We are obliged to say, also, that there is now nothing and there can be nothing on what was once the prairie side of the city that will, in the faintest degree compare, in landscape value, with that which, in the Summer of 1893, will everywhere be presented on the Lake side. Saying this, we again point out that we do not mean that the comparative disadvantage of a West side site in this particular, may not be compensated by its greater accessibility from a majority of homes of the city, the greater and better facilities for the transportation, both of visitors and of the materials which the Exposition will require to be brought to and taken from the site. We recognize that, taking the year through, such part of the West side as is fairly well built up, may be the best residence quarter of the city. But considering what has been so strenuously urged upon the attention of the country in regard to the number and excellence of the sites which Chicago has to offer; considering what advantages the Centennial Fair in Philadelphia possessed in the neighboring scenery; considering what advantages of the same order would have been possessed by the Fair if it had been given a site in the beautiful Rock Creek Valley at Washington, of which the Nation is just taking possession for a Park; considering what superb views were presented of the Palisades and up the valley of the Hudson on one hand, [187]and over the waters and varied shores of Long Island Sound on the other, from the site offered for the Fair by New York; considering all this, we cannot but fear that the choice of a site in the rear of the city, utterly without natural landscape attraction, would be found a disappointment to the country, and that it would give occasion for not a little ironical reference to the claims of an endless extent of perfect sites made last Winter before Congress.

THE NORTH WEST SITE: This site is flat, has much good soil and is partly covered with an extended body of wood, many of the trees of which are of a fine character, superior to any others which we have seen equally near the center of the city. Probably better advantages for horticulture are offered here than on any other of the sites considered. Through the timber winds the river which, as we have formerly seen it, would, in connection with the timber, be a landscape attraction of value. But when the stream of this river dwindles nearly to dead pools, as we believe that it is liable to do any Summer, it would, with its raw banks and mirey bed, be both an inconvenient and an offensive feature of a great Fair. It has at present, hardly a perceptible current, and the little water that remains in it appears foul and stagnant. Considering this circumstance and the fact that the site commands no view of the Lake, it must be considered less desirable than the site which lies a little more than a mile eastward from it, and which is next to be taken up.

THE NORTH LAKE SITE: This is the only site that we have examined with which we had previously had no familiarity. Nor did we hear that it had been proposed until we asked if there was no ground north of the city to be considered. That it had not been more prominently brought forward, we presume to be due in part, to the absence of any local interest to have it adopted, and in part to reasons not in our province to weigh, such as those of access by railways. Probably the suggestion of it would not be pleasing to the great body of the citizens of Chicago. But these considerations make it the more our duty to advise you that, before deciding the question of a site for the Fair, certain advantages that it offers should be fully realized.

It has been thought to be possible, as we understand, that the Directors of the Exposition might obtain possession during the period of the Fair, of a body of land to be in part described as follows: A nearly square block of 300 acres, with additions of irregular outline on the North of as much more; less than half of this whole area being, in our judgment, more than ample for all requirements of the Fair, provided it could be had in a suitable form. A frontage of a mile and a half on the Lake, much nearer the center of population of the City than Jackson Park. A surface nearly flat, undivided by gulleys or sloughs. A sandy subsoil, as far as we observed, throughout; covered in the Western half by a dark surface soil, largely composed of leaf mould, and which has been considerably used with success for nursery and market gardens. This soil gradually becomes thinner in the eastern part, and near the beach a more or less drifting sand takes its place. Large bodies of wood, not as fine as that on the Northwest site, but much finer than that on the South Parks. The whole, [188]

as far as we could judge by cursory examination at this season, better drained than any other land in the suburbs of the city, and a notable part of it already sewered. Water works are now being constructed near the south east corner of the tract, and it is believed practicable to complete them within a year. As planned they are of large capacity, being intended to meet the future wants of a great district yet thinly inhabited in the northern part of the city. This is a highly important consideration; for, with an abundant use of water, with other applications, it will be practicable even on the sandy surface near the shore, to establish all desired verdure. Of this, evidence appears in the present conditions of a few of the lawns and gardens closely adjoining the tract. Evidence, also, in the present condition of Lincoln Park to those who remember the condition of its site twenty years ago.

The long line of the Lake Shore at this point is mainly a clean, hard, sandy beach; there is a Lake horizon of nearly 180 degrees. The view over the Lake is even finer than that to be had from the intended esplanade of Jackson Park, in that nearly all the floating commerce of the port of Chicago, the largest in number of craft, and the second in tonnage of any port of this continent, passes in procession on a line parallel with the beach, and generally at a distance most favorable for an imposing panoramic display.

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No other site near Chicago offers equal advantages in respect to an effective grouping of large and small structures and of features of natural landscape, in association with them; and generally, for arrangements of the character, which, in the preface to this report, we have described to be most desirable. To suggest the grounds of this opinion, let it be supposed, for example, that the principal group of buildings for the Fair should be placed near the shore; suppose the agricultural and horticultural exhibits should be placed in the Western part; suppose these two divisions should be connected by a broad alleé, with a viaduct over the railroad which passes through the property on a North and South line at a distance of half a mile from the shore; suppose that a series of smaller buildings and various horticultural and other exhibits not requiring buildings, should be placed in an orderly way, fronting upon this alleé; suppose that passages should be occasionally left between these buildings, leading to the right and to the left. There would then be, for nearly all these structures and for other exhibits, a back-ground of well-grown natural woods infinitely finer than could be provided on any site, by planting, before the time of the Fair. [190]These woods would give a form to all that part of the Exhibition requiring the finest setting, of approximately that of a prolonged amphitheatre, the principal group on the Lake side forming one end of it, the principal structure of the agricultural or horticultural department, the other. Pursuing the alleés leading out right and left from the axial line of this amphitheatre, districts would be approached through the woods on each side, in which would be satisfactorily placed all those features of the Fair that, because coming in too late, had not been considered nor given places in the earlier arrangements; or which, for any reason, it would be desirable to set somewhat distinguishingly apart.

It is more than probable that with study, and after proper consultation with the architects and other artists whom you will employ, a general design much better than that thus imperfectly suggested, may be devised. But, with respect to the advantages offered for a design of the general motives suggested, it will be obvious that the North Lake Site stands by itself.

We do not wish to touch upon the question of approaches, except with respect to natural landscape considerations. Having regard to these we may say that nothing can surpass what will be offered by the North Shore, or Sheridan Drive, passing as it will for a considerable distance between the foliage of Lincoln Park on the one hand, and the bright broad waters of the lake on the other. It is our calling to prepare pleasure drives with borders adapted by the modeling of their surface, their stretches of verdure, their groups and masses of foliage and the perspectives of scenery to be obtained from them, that will be as enjoyable as the conditions imposed upon us admit. For the better pursuit of this calling, we have repeatedly visited and studied all the most notable works of this description in Europe and the United States. It is necessary that we should testify that nothing of the kind that art can produce as an approach to a World’s Fair, is to be held for a moment in comparison with that which, without any draft upon your funds, the city will, before 1893, have provided in the Sheridan Drive?

If we have said enough to secure a prudent consideration of the availability of the territory we have thus described, it is unnecessary that we should, at this time, say more; and we have only to repeat once again, in concluding this contribution to the study of the question of the most suitable site for the World’s Fair, that we have aimed to give you no opinion as to which of the places that have been considered, taking everything into account, and looking from all sides, is the best for the purpose; that being a question calling for much study of another kind than that which it has been our professional concern to apply to it.

Respectfully yours,

We may perhaps without impropriety, and in all courtesy, remind some of those whom, through your Board, Mr. President, we are indirectly addressing, that we have not sought the duty, now brought we trust to a conclusion, but have come to your city upon an invitation given in precisely the spirit, as we have assumed, that professional gentlemen of Chicago have been asked in counsel in lighter matters than that of a World’s Exposition by our City of Boston and as ourselves have previously been by the governments of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, San Francisco and a full score of towns of the United States and Canada.