A few figures, dry enough in themselves if there were nothing more, will serve as a means of comparison of the relative spaces under cover. The building on the Champ de Mars is stated officially to be 650 mètres long by 350 mètres broad, which, reduced to our measurement, will give 2,447,536 square feet. Deducting 150,000 feet for two enclosed alleys, the area under roof will be 2,297,536 feet. The area of the five principal buildings at the Centennial Exhibition was:
Main Building.................... 872,320
Agricultural Hall................ 442,800
Horticultural Hall............... 73,919 _________ 1,970,409
So that the difference in favor of Paris is 327,127 feet. In round numbers, the Paris Exposition building is one-fifth larger than the united areas of the five principal buildings at the Centennial. Without making a close calculation of the areas of the annexes and detached buildings either of Philadelphia or Paris, I am disposed to think that the 1876 Exhibition was not in excess of the present one in this respect. Either exceeds, both in the main buildings and the swarm of detached structures, any preceding exhibitions. The difference between the Paris exhibitions of 1867 and 1878 is as 153 is to 240: the London building of 1862 would bear to both the proportion of 92, without any important annexes.
The high ground on the right bank of the Seine is occupied by the Trocadéro Palace, which faces that on the Champ de Mars, each building being about five hundred yards from the bank of the river, which flows in so deep a depression that it is visible from neither building, and the grounds between the two appear to be continuous, though the bridge suggests the contrary.
The cascade in front of the Trocadéro occupies the site of the old steps by which the steep hill was ascended, but the ground nearer to the Seine has been so raised that the river-roads on each side run in subways spanned by bridges, thus permitting free use of the great thoroughfares without impeding communication between the two portions of the Exposition. Indeed, they appear as one viewed in either direction, notwithstanding the intervening streets and wide and rapid river.
The change in the shape of the Trocadéro hill to bring it into a symmetrical position in front of the Champ de Mars has required the quarrying of twenty-four thousand cubic mètres of rock, leaving a rough scarp on the northern edge quarried into steps, walks and grottos, with flowers, ferns and mosses cunningly planted on the ledge and creepers on the walls.