University of Virginia Library

THE SITE.

The Exposition site includes a portion of Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance, an area of 664 acres, with a frontage of one and one-half miles on the lake (Michigan).

The Exposition buildings proper are situated in Jackson Park. Midway Plaisance, connecting Jackson Park with Washington Park, is occupied throughout its entire length by special Exposition features, largely of a foreign character. Fully one million dollars have been expended on the grounds in grading and dredging extensive waterways throughout it, in landscape gardening and the purchase of statuary, fountains, pleasure boats, observation towers, and other accessories.

The electric lighting of buildings and grounds is ten times more extensive than was employed at the Paris Exposition, and includes 138,218 electric lamps; 6,766 arc lights of 2,000 candle power each, and 131,452 of incadescent, sixteen candle power type. The total number of electric lights in use at Jackson Park is more than half the number used in all Chicago, outside the Exposition grounds.

Sixty-four million gallons of water per day is the available supply to buildings and grounds. The pumping works, and all the great machinery furnishing the 26,000 horse power required, are on teh grounds open to the inspection of visitors.

Special features of landscape gardening art, which has here been brought to perfection, are the Basin, branching into the Grand Canal, and leading to the broad lagoons which surround the great wooded island in the center of the grounds. Go where you may, one meets the ever present water. All Exposition buildings border on Basin, Canal, Lagoon, or Lake front. The result is to dispel the languid, torrid air and add an invigorating charm to the scene. The grand effect of the ensemble is shone in the double page panoramic view which leads the illustrations of this souvenir, while a map showing the location and purpose of each building, occupies the inside back cover.