Centennial craze. Their doors, though sealed, were eloquent, for they
bore in great black letters on staring white muslin the shibboleth of
the day, "1776--International Exhibition--1876." The enthusiasm of those
very hard and unimpressible entities, the railroad companies, thus
manifesting itself in low rates and gratuitous advertising, could not
fail to be contagious. Nor was the service done by the interior lines
wholly domestic. Several large foreign contributions from the Pacific
traversed the continent. The houses and the handicraft of the Mongol
climbed the Sierra Nevada on the magnificent highway his patient labor
had so large a share in constructing. Nineteen cars were freighted with
the rough and unpromising chrysalis that developed into the neat and
elaborate cottage of Japan, and others brought the Chinese display.
Polynesia and Australia adopted the same route in part. The canal
modestly assisted the rail, lines of inland navigation conducting to the
grounds barges of three times the tonnage of the average sea-going craft
of the Revolutionary era. These sluggish and smooth-going vehicles were
employed for the carriage of some of the large plants and trees which
enrich the horticultural department, eight boats being required to
transport from New York a thousand specimens of the Cuban flora sent by
a single exhibitor, M. Lachaume of Havana. Those moisture-loving shrubs,
the brilliant rhododendra collected by English nurserymen from our own
Alleghanies and returned to us wonderfully improved by civilization,
might have been expected also to affect the canal, but they chose, with
British taste, the more rapid rail. They had, in fact, no time to lose,
for their blooming season was close at hand, and their roots must needs
hasten to test the juices of American soil. Japan's miniature garden of
miniature plants, interesting far beyond the proportions of its
dimensions, was perforce dependent on the same means of conveyance.

[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE EGYPTIAN DIVISION, MAIN BUILDING.]