Not only is nothing being done in construction toward supplying what is needed for the proposed small boating service of the Exposition, but there is no other part of the whole field of preparation as to which the elementary principles of design to be pursued appear to be as far from being settled upon as in this part. The failure of all approach to a settlement is, in our judgment, seriously hazardous, and we are the more concerned that it is so because there is no other division of our duty to which, after the Jackson Park site was adopted, we gave earlier, or have since been giving, more anxious attention. There is none with a view to the discussion of which we have taken equal pains to gather and digest information and intelligent opinions. We are yet eager to do anything further that we can to bring discussion upon the subject to some conclusions and are glad that our advice is asked.

But we must say that we are surprised that you can, at this late day, feel that you have occasion to obtain our opinions upon such propositions as those to which our attention is called in your note of the 22nd instant, and we are obliged to ask ourselves if we have hitherto failed to make our most settled convictions known to you. For the difference between our view of what is essential to be had in the boats and the view which has led such propositions to be addressed to you is by no means a difference as to details, or a difference of degree. It is a radical, fundamental and integral difference. If these propositions are in any degree sound, then our opinions and our proceedings of the [433]last year bearing upon the boat question are wholly and hopelessly unsound, and to the moment of their coming under discussion not the slightest progress has been made toward a sound conclusion.

Taking the view we have thus indicated of the existing situation, in trying to meet your request we shall aim to leave it no longer possible for you to have any question as to where we stand.

The better to effect this object, and also perhaps to account for what may have seemed to you a lack, for a time, of activity in this department of our duty, we wish first to recall to your mind the following circumstances.

Some months ago there was had under discussion at your office a draft for a schedule of certain particulars of a boat to be built with a view to its serving, (if approved with reference to these particulars), as a pattern or standard of requirements for the proposed fleet of boats. This draft was debated by you, Mr. Nixon, Mr. Sargent and ourselves, and as we then, and for some time afterwards, supposed, was adopted, at least for the provisional purpose stated. It was supposed by us to embody, as to main dimensions and seating arrangements, the net results in your mind of all the study that we had given to the subject in connection with Mr. Nixon, the late Mr. Burgess, Mr. Burgess’s successor, our professional correspondent in London, and several yachting and boating men and makers of engines with whom we had conferred. It did not represent our opinions, but opinions to which, with deference to yours and Mr. Nixon’s and those to which we thought the Committee would probably be inclined, and in view of what we regarded as the necessity for immediate action on the subject, we had been led to think it best, with a compromising purpose, not to advise against. We were the more moved to recommend the adoption of the draft without further prolonging the debate because we considered that, over an actual boat, the main question would be reviewed with a better understanding of some points upon which differences of opinion appeared, and because when looking at such a sample boat we thought that, if not in these controlling particulars, at least in minor particulars of no small importance, questions remaining might be better discussed.

It has since appeared that we were mistaken in our understanding of the result in your mind, and that discussion is now even less advanced than we had supposed it to be before that conference. Your communication of the 22nd takes us back, in fact, to the consideration of a decked boat at least 50 feet long, and to be moved by steam. It may be well, therefore, to remind you further that it had been assumed in the debates upon Mr. Nixon’s schedule that some other method of propulsion was to be preferred to that of steam, chiefly because it was supposed by us all that in a boat of a given size, moved by steam, fewer passengers could be carried with comfort than in a boat of no larger dimensions moved by some other motor, as, for example, by electricity. This because much of the electric apparatus would be disposable under the floor and thwarts of a suitable boat, while the necessary steam apparatus in a small boat would occupy room, or lessen the value of room that might otherwise be comfortably [434]occupied by passengers. This assumption had not until now been regarded as open to question. If it is now to be abandoned, and if there is really nothing to ascend from the furnace of a steam-boat that would be disagreeable to people on the 10 bridges under which the boats must pass, or on the miles of terraces and bank walks near which, and to windward of which, the boats must be often passing, then we have no objection to make to the use of steam on boats of a size suitable and becoming to the narrow, crooked waters of the Exposition.

Passing the question of motive power, the questions suggested by your note may be stated thus:

First, would it not be better to use a larger boat than was proposed in the schedule of requirements discussed last Summer?

Second, would it not be better to use a decked boat and to carry passengers wholly above her deck; that is, to carry them on or over the boat, rather than in her? Or, using popular semi-technical terms, is not something near the common typical form of a small American river “steam-boat” to be preferred to anything of the “launch” type?

In discussion hitherto of these questions, what has been said favorable to a deck’d boat 50 to 60 feet long, in distinction from a launch 20 to 40 feet long, has seemed to us to be said with a disposition (for the sake of debate, we have supposed, rather than as a mature and serious proposition) to assume that the chief value of the lagoons and the canals as features of the plan of the Exposition is to be looked for in the added facilities for the transportation of visitors for which they may give opportunity, and that, in accordance with this view of the lagoons, the chief use of the proposed boat service must be assumed to be that of an addition to such facilities of transportation as may be otherwise provided; as, for instance, by the intra-mural railroad, the French sliding railroad, the moving sidewalk and the jinrikisha, or wheel-chair service.

With regard to any possible inclination that you may tentatively entertain to study the boat problem from such a point of view, it should, we think, first of all be considered that those with whom the features in question of the general plan originated did not, in devising them, take that point of view, nor are they prepared to adopt any estimate of the value of those features that is based on their supposed fitness to materially increase the means of intercommunication between different parts of the Exposition. They think that the various reaches of water separating different parts of the Exposition, and practically putting the several parts much further apart than they would otherwise have been placed, present a grave objection to the general plan; an objection to offset which the best possible means of transportation upon these waters would be a most inadequate compensation. In justification of such a cutting up of the Exposition site by bodies of water, they must look to some other advantage as a compensation for this evil. In what can they claim that it lies? To this question, our answer is that the compensation is to be looked for only in certain advantages to be gained through the introduction of the waters and their [435]accompaniments for what, in lack of any other concise term in general use, may be described as the general, out-of-door scenic effect of the Exposition.

To the effect desired in this respect, the general design assumes that contribution is to be made not alone by the waters, but by their shores; by the display of foliage and verdure of many descriptions on these shores; by the bridges across the waters; by the terraces overhanging them; by all the fixed circumstances attending and depending on the waters, to be reflected in them or to be seen in direct association with them. All of these elements of design have, accordingly, been studied with great care to adapt them to contribute to the desired general scenic effect of the Exposition as a whole. To this general scenic effect, a further contribution is to be made by a stock of large birds floating upon the waters, especially so, if, as we have advised, considerable numbers can be procured of suitable vivacious forms and tints. To this effect, a still further and much larger and more important contribution it has been calculated by the designers would be made through boats moving upon the waters, but this only provided that it shall be found practicable to procure boats in considerable numbers, of a character as finely, delicately and subtly adapted to the general scenic and poetic purpose as the other elements above referred to may be hoped to be. Boats not refinedly designed with reference to this purpose, ordinary steam pleasure boats, for example, and boats differing from ordinary steam pleasure boats only in having less suitable forms and being loaded with a profusion of cheap ornament, such boats, in fact, as have been seriously commended by intelligent gentlemen looking primarily to the purpose of transportation, so far from contributing to the scenic purpose, would, as you were advised by us immediately after Jackson Park was adopted as the site of the Exposition, most wastefully detract from it.

We will not say that advantages that may be offered in one or another form of boat for carrying passengers between different points of the Exposition are of no consequence, even of little consequence, but inasmuch as suggestions as to what would be desirable in boats have been made which represent, not only total blindness to what is demanded by regard to general scenic effect, but a greatly exaggerated estimate of the importance of this means of transportation, to give a more definite form to our judgment on this point, we may say that the number of visitors to be at any moment afloat on the boats, under ordinary favorable circumstances, is not, in our judgment, to be estimated at more than 1 per cent of those who are at the same time to be otherwise moving through the Exposition. Nor can what is to be gained by using boats of a larger class than was contemplated in Mr. Nixon’s schedule of last Summer be estimated at more than a small fraction of 1 per cent.

Hence, whatever value the boats are going to have for the transportation of visitors should, we hold, be regarded as value incidentally occurring from their use, primarily, as a means of advancing the main artistic motive of the general design.

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With regard to what is due to this most important, this all-important consideration, it is, first of all, to be borne in mind that the waters in which the boats are to be moving are narrow; the passage-ways for boats in them being at several points not more than 70 feet wide; they are crooked, so crooked and to be so occupied that it will be often necessary for a boat, while running on her regular course, to turn at right angles within a distance of 100 feet; their shores are low; the foliage immediately on the shores is to be low, not generally rising more than 3 feet above the water, and the boats are, on each circuit, to pass 19 times under low bridges, the piers of which are from 30 to 50 feet apart. The question of what is desirable in a boat, under these circumstances, thinking of her as a contribution to general scenic effect, is, first of all, one of landscape scale, and it should be recognized that in nothing is an untrained imagination as likely to be as much at fault as in regard to requirements of scale. The boats will befit the scene better the less pronounced, the less eminent and obtrusive they are; the further they are from having stately qualities; the lighter, the more nimble, the more bird-like and girlish they are; the less they advertise themselves; the less they disturb all that by, under, over and through which they are passing; the more exquisitely they appear adapted to glide quietly and naturally across the scene; the less fussy they appear; the less the apparent need of effort with which they move through air and water. To put people on their decks and build a roof over them, especially a high roof; to give the boats a breadth that would make them seem to be smashing through, instead of caressing and being caressed by air and water, would be the most mal-adroit thing possible. It would be a great misfortune, a blot and offense upon the whole Exposition, to have such boats in these interior waters. Needless to add that it would be infinitely better to have no boats at all.

After long and studious review, after taking candid, patient and deferential part in much debate on the subject, by word of mouth and by written correspondence; after striving with a sincere desire to accommodate our views, as far as would by any means be possible, to the suggestions of other minds less keyed to the main landscape motives of the plan; we find that we must at last settle back to the idea that we first had on the subject, an idea flowing naturally out of our meditation upon the conditions of desirable scenic effect. We must settle back upon this idea and with only increased assurance that it was a much sounder one, as to the controlling conditions, than any other which, during the last year, we have heard advanced, and have been led to tentatively entertain.

But if you ask us now, in view of all the circumstances, and in the exercise of such respect as is due to your suggestions, those of Mr. Nixon, and with regard to the probable attitude on the subject of the Commissioners who will doubtless have control of the question; if you ask our mature opinions of what is to be recommended under these circumstances, we give you our professional counsel as follows:

First, that the limit of length for a model boat should not exceed 30 feet (we originally recommended 20 to 25 feet).

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Second, that persons carried by the boat should be so seated that the tops of their heads will not generally be more than 2 feet above the gunwale.

Third, that no part of the gunwale, or any fixture of the boat should be at all more elevated above the water-line than experts in building and handling small pleasure boats in still, land-locked waters shall accurately calculate to be needful in a studied reconciliation of conditions of safety and reasonable convenience with requirements of ease and grace in the quiet gliding of the hull through air and water.

Fourth, that nothing should be seen above the gunwale of the boat that is decently avoidable, unless it is of a floating or fluttering aspect, such as a streamer on a light staff, or a light, low canvass canopy or awning.

Fifth, that all attachments or furnishings of the boat above the gunwale that may be determined to be necessary to the reasonable comfort of passengers should be kept as little removed above the water-line as can, by any available exercise of ingenuity, specially applied to this object, be made practicable.

We do not advise you, be it borne in mind, as boat-builders or as inventors, but as landscape designers. We should not be expected to devise specifications for the building and furnishing of boats required as adjuncts to the general scenic arrangements of the Exposition. We should not be expected to give opinions of a closer and more accurate character than those we thus have. We can state the problem. It is for the boat designer, for the man whose inventive talent has been cultivated in respect to details of boat designing, to devise the solution of the problem.

Had a specimen boat been prepared, as we supposed to have been determined last Summer, we should at this time have been able, as the result of inspection and trial, to give more definite statements of our opinions. As it is, we are the more unready now to state our views in terms of feet and inches as to the requirements of the problem in respect to grace and lightness of various parts of a boat because we have found no existing boat, the above-board features of which came near enough to what we should think barely admissible in this respect, to start a calculation upon. This is a matter upon which we should be supposed qualified to advise in terms of feet and inches, only after more careful personal tests than we have thus far found opportunities to make. We can only say that the boat-designer should be asked to plan all the above-board fixtures and appliances of the sample boat for the Exposition with the intent that they should be made to appear as light and delicate and dainty as, with all exercise of his special training and personal ingenuity and skill, it is practicable that they should be made consistently with efficiency for their utilitarian purpose.

On the question as to what should be required by the Commissioners for the special artistic purposes, and under the peculiar conditions of the Exposition, we do not think that opinions should be sought from boat-builders, unless they have been giving, in advance of forming these opinions, special study to [438]the subject with a good understanding of the general motives of the entire landscape design, nor unless they have pleasurable sympathy with these motives.

To any boat-builder in that condition, we are sure that, after due reflection, it will be obvious that, however useful boats of the size and type that we are objecting to might be for the conveyance of freight and passengers among the shipping, ware-houses and wharves of the Chicago River or other premises of commerce, it would be hard to contrive anything more destructive than such boats would be of the desired general effect of all those elements of the Exposition as to the design of which you have been accustomed to take counsel with us.

The opinions that we are urging in this respect are, as we have said, those that we entertained as the result of our first study of the general design of the site of the Exposition. Our first communication to you on the subject, which was allowed at the time (most unfortunately we think) to be published, was expressly and solely intended to warn you to forestall, exclude and put out of question the least entertainment of just such propositions as those you now refer to us, and which we well knew would be soon coming from men not wanting in general intelligence and taste, but who would, in conceiving them, be looking at the question narrowly, superficially, perhaps from a commercial standpoint, and certainly under the influence of a habit not desirable to be carried into the consideration of questions of the general design of the Exposition.

To conclude this report, we will give our opinions on a few points as to which they may still not be perfectly clear to you, in the form of question and answer.

1.	Q. Would you now advise the adoption of such a boat as was proposed in the specifications suggested by Mr. Nixon last Summer.
	A. Yes, but only because we fear that nothing better can be designed before it is necessary to begin the construction of the boat.
2.	Q. You would not be satisfied then with such a boat as he contemplated:- In what particulars would such a boat be unsatisfactory?
	A. For the particular use required of the fleet of boats as a part of the scenic properties of the Exposition, the boat proposed would be too long, and would be too broad relatively to its length. As to the roof which Mr. Nixon thinks necessary, if he cannot, after, due study of the question, give way to our views, we must submit to his as an expert, but we cannot help remaining of the opinion that the roof, under the circumstances, would have a very unhappy effect. A light canvass awning, set lower than Mr. Nixon would place his roof, and so contrived as not to be in the way of passengers embarking, would give the boat a character inexpressibly more graceful and becoming. We have seen such awnings used hundreds of times in tropical ports on tropical rivers in different parts of the world, and Captain Meade of the Board of Management of the Government Exhibits, whom we [439] have consulted on this point, tells us that he has often brought on and taken off from his ship in a single day hundreds of well-dressed ladies under such awnings in perfect comfort and safety, both in stormy and in hot, sunny weather. The writer has himself been one of a crew pulling a ship’s boat, under such an awning, forty miles, in the hottest weather of Southern China. The whole interior arrangement of Mr. Nixon’s proposed boat was, we believe, contrived with regard to your supposed wishes as to the carrying capacity of the boat, that is to say, to her carrying larger numbers of passengers than a boat of her length can be made to carry gracefully. A boat fitted to Mr. Nixon’s schedule will assuredly appear infelicitously overloaded and clumsy. Its general aspect will be the reverse of that of a gliding creature. The fleet of boats will suggest a solid, soulless, money-making, corporation purpose, rather than a series of light-hearted parties of pleasure. But we cannot be sure that it is now possible to design and adequately test anything better than Mr. Nixon had in view. Hence, we do not advise delay for the purpose. We would only remark that possibly the hull of the boat could be brought to completion, in accordance with Mr. Nixon’s schedule, while a better design of the upper works was being studied.
3.	Q. Do you think that if as many as it will be practicable to run in an orderly way of such boats as have been proposed by Mr. Nixon are put on the waters of the Exposition, they will accommodate all who may wish to use them?
	A. By no means.
4.	Q. Suppose a considerably larger type of boat should be used than that proposed by Mr. Nixon, would the fleet then be able to carry all who would like to be carried through the Exposition waters?
	A. Nowhere near all.
5.	Q. There is danger, then, whatever sort of boat is used, that there will often be bodies of people crowding about the landings waiting for vacancies in the boats, which crowds will obstruct passage along the walks near the landings and be in many ways objectionable?
	A. There is great danger of it.
6.	Q. Is there any way in which this danger can be kept within tolerable limits?
	A. The number of persons at any time flocking to a landing and eager to get on the boats will depend largely on the price which must be paid for the privilege of entering them. It is no more reasonable to expect the Commissioners to give people an excursion through the interior waters of the Exposition at a price that will make the luxury convenient to all than that the Commissioners should see to it that all visitors to the Exposition can have champagne with their dinners at a price which they would be willing to pay. We should advise from the first a higher rate of fare than Mr. Nixon has had in view. If, at the [440] rates first established, crowds were found waiting at the landings, we should advise that the rate of fare be made still higher.
7.	Q. Would not this limit the usefulness of the boating service?
	A. It would not. The usefulness of the boats will depend in a very small degree upon the number of people they carry. It will depend, first, and chiefly, on the degree of pleasure which visitors not carried in the boats will have in seeing the passing boats as incidents of the great panorama; second, but to a much smaller extent, it will depend upon the degree of pleasure which those who use the boats find themselves to obtain for the money they pay for the privilege. The number of visitors who are to be pleased by the boats as elements of the general panorama to be enjoyed from the terraces and the walks along the shores will be a hundred to one of those who are to be carried in the boats.

The boats recommended in the proposition, as to the entertainment of which you ask for our advice, would, in effect, be big, over-loaded, toplofty, water freight wagons, and would have a most unbecoming and unsuitable appearance on the still, narrow, meandering, gala waters of the Exposition. Of all the incongruities that have been proposed to be brought into the Exposition by men whose minds are raw to the subject, such boats as you ask us to consider would be the most unbecoming. An attempt to make them ornamental by paint and applied decoration, as you do not need that we should say, would add to their vulgarity and impertinence.

Yours Respectfully,