Wednesday Philip had set apart on his schedule for the Fisheries Building, intending to spend any spare time at some less important places near by. He had already found that it was well to save himself what bodily fatigue he could, and so he took a rolling-chair almost as soon as he entered the grounds, from a conical tent not far from the Pennsylvania Railroad exhibit. The man who pushed the chair told Philip he was from Finland; and a few attempts to converse with him were so fruitless that Philip gave up trying.
He went first to the photographic room where he had left a roll of pictures to be developed. Then, after making the usual morning call for letters, he went on to the appointed building. On the way, the Finland guide woke up enough to show some interest in photography, asking Philip, “Do you take in colors the pictures yet?” Philip in reply gave a short account of the state of (what is called) color-photography, and the Finland guide was probably more muddled than ever.
Philip had once or twice stepped into the Fisheries Building before, but so far had never been in the east wing, where the aquaria were situated; so he selected this part as a beginning. As usual, he had brought his camera, and right at the entrance he found a good subject—a young man who was perched upon one side of the steps. Philip “took” him, and then set himself to studying the decorations of the outside of the portico.
The pillars supporting the arched doorway had in relief upon them forms of aquatic life, modeled life-size or larger, and arranged in geometrical patterns. For instance, one pillar was covered with frogs arranged in diagonal lines crossing one another so as to form diamonds. Others in the same doorway showed turtles, snakes and lily-leaves, newts and crabs.
Philip also saw that all of the ornamental work about the building was composed in the same way. He thought it amusing in a temporary building, but felt sure his friend the architect whom they met on the Whaleback would never have approved of the decorations if applied in equal profusion to a permanent building.
Inside the aquarium wing he found a circular corridor both side walls of which were made up of tanks filled either with salt or fresh water. To keep this water fresh and wholesome for the fish, spurts of water shot down through the surface from above, making a silvery fountain upside down at the top of each tank. There were no windows in the corridor, all the light coming through the water from the top of the tanks. This arrangement made that part of the building rather gloomy, but enabled the people to see the fish under the best possible conditions.
The people seemed to enjoy the show very much, and had none of that bored air with which they walked around some exhibits in other buildings. Each aquarium was like a show-case, and the light playing upon the moving fish caused them to glitter and shine. Philip heard one girl exclaim as she entered, “Um—um! How lovely!” and wondered for the hundredth time at the queer adjectives girls apply to what pleases them.
The building was jammed full. Judging from photographs he had seen, Philip was sure that in the earlier days of the Exposition there was a better opportunity for examining exhibits. Now, everywhere he went, there were such throngs of people that he found it difficult to use his note-book. Every time he entered a building, he found his camera a burden and a trouble; but no sooner was he out again than he was glad he had brought it with him.
Here he had to fall into line if he wished to make any progress at all. People would gaze upon some slab-sided, pop-eyed fish until they entirely forgot they were keeping others away. Then the crowd would move forward with the gentle force of a glacier, and progress would begin again.
The first tanks Philip saw held various sorts of bass, sturgeon, trout, and pike. It was a strange sensation to see the fish so near, and so confined that they could not dart away. It gave one the idea that swimming in the sea was not so very different from flying in the air, except that a bird has to keep moving or descend, whereas the fish can stop where he pleases, and hang suspended as comfortably as Mahomet in his coffin, or more so.
Other fish he saw were the sheepshead, who had the true sheepish expression; catfish, with their odd sparse whiskers; some strangers labeled “small-mouthed buffaloes” (Philip wondered how it would sound to go into a restaurant and order “a fried small-mouthed buffalo, please, for one”); something that was written down in his note-book as “red-horse”—but what the creatures were like, and what their true names might be, Philip had no recollection at all when he read over his notes. There were, though, some whose names did recall exactly their appearance,—the “short-nosed gars,” for instance, who had particularly long noses.
The tank of goldfish was really “lovely,” for as one approached them the light shone upon them as brilliantly as if they had been sunset clouds. One visitor was so impressed with this fine display that he remarked with more feeling than logic, “It is wonderful what human flesh can do when they put their heads together!” Philip laughed at this, and after having had his elbow joggled four or five times, succeeded in writing it down so that he hoped he could tell Harry about it.
Harry and Mr. Douglass were at the other end of the grounds; for Harry, in view of his father’s letter, felt that he ought to go through the little convent, and Mr. Douglass found that end of the Fair full of interest.
It was oppressively warm in the Fisheries Building, and Philip, often over-prudent, had carried his overcoat with him. He had heard so much before coming to Chicago of the “cold breezes from the lake,” that he hardly dared to enter the grounds without some protection. At first the coat was light enough, but as time went on it seemed that each moment dropped a leaden bullet into one of the pockets, and his arms ached though he changed the burden continually from one to the other. His camera he made use of as a desk, fastening his note-book to the top of it by putting a rubber band around one end, but the coat became a great nuisance before the tour was finished.
In one tank he saw a queer turtle whose flippers were so broad that they reminded Philip of four fans on the ends of a frog’s “arms” and legs. The sand-pike, the golden ide (“A queer way to spell it!” said an old lady), and the Missouri catfish occupied more tanks, and claimed Philip’s attention in their order. The last tank of the outside row was filled with minnows,—such as boys call “shiners,”—and reminded him of a big bait-box.
Then came salt-water fish, and the change in the color and clearness of the water was very noticeable. It was much harder to see the fish, and when they scooted off to the other side of the tank, they were lost to view. The lobsters had a sort of pile of rocks to which they clung fast, and the crabs also seemed disinclined to move about. When he came to a tank labeled “sea-robins,” it was some time before Philip could see why the queer little fish were so called. At last, when one came near, he noticed a red spot beside its head, and concluded that this accounted for the name. One of the oddest specimens he saw was called the “paddle-fish.” It had a long flat nose extending out flat forward—probably it was used by the fish as a sort of shovel to stir up the sandy or muddy ground where its food was found.
Philip wondered what the fish thought of their queer situation. Instead of having the whole ocean to roam through, they found themselves in narrow quarters around which great animals with staring eyes pressed continually. They did not seem at all frightened, and had probably given up their situation as a problem the solution of which was not meant for them to know. At least they must have found some satisfaction in the absence of the enemies who usually chased them about without regard for Sundays or holidays. Philip, who was of a speculative turn of mind, wondered how it would seem to men if lions and tigers might at any moment come around the corner to devour them. He hoped that the fish were less sensitive, or he was sure their lives in the ocean would be so unbearable that they would commit suicide by leaping out on shore.
“Them’s catfish.”
“Oh, no, they ain’t.”
“I tell you, they be.”
“Wal, I guess not.”
“Wal, I guess yes.”
“Oh, you go ’way; I guess I know!”
The scientific discussion given above had proceeded no further when a cooler-headed member of the party pointed with a peace-making finger to the label, which read “Catfish,” as plain as print. Hoping that these visitors’ knowledge of fishes had been improved by this little difference of opinion, Philip found that he had exhausted the contents of the outer corridor, and went into the middle, where he found a rockwork fountain surrounded by a pool full of other fish. He went around the tanks seen from the middle of the building with the same care he had given to those outside, and found plenty to pay him for the trouble.
In one compartment were several sharks, and affixed to one of the sharks were two of those fishes called “remoras,” who have upon their heads a sort of sucker that can be used to hold them to any smooth surface. Philip remembered reading that the ancients thought these fish could stop even a large galley. He had always regarded the statement as a wild yarn of antique romancers, but he was glad to see just how the remora applied himself to his vocation. The shark was unable to get at his unwelcome guests, and there were two of them, each more than half as long as his host. Philip said to himself that it was a shame, and then he happened to think that it was not necessary to be very sorry for sharks—which are not a kindly race. What the remora had to gain by this attachment he couldn’t exactly see, unless it was mere transportation from place to place. Possibly the shark would leave something of every meal, and then the remoras would dine at the second table. It was as if a banker should have two professional beggars sit upon his shoulders, and pick up the odd change that he didn’t look sharply after.
The next remarkable fish that attracted his eye—or rather, repelled it—was the file-fish. This creature, if it was the file-fish, had a strong family resemblance to an unequally cooked and lumpy buckwheat cake, and was hardly thicker. It was an animated pancake swimming edge up. But what interested Philip was its method of propulsion. Along its back ran a fin for nearly the fish’s whole length, and this fin waved in a curving line like the path of a serpent. Philip had heard Harry wonder why ships were not propelled by some such device, and he resolved to tell his cousin that Nature was ahead of him in using that means of going through the water.
Then Philip walked along the curving corridor with ornamented columns that led to the main building. Just as he entered this part of the central hall, he saw a clever bit of advertising. It was headed, “They say it’s hot in Southern California,” and below was a statement of the daily temperature contrasted with that of Chicago. For that day the California temperature was 67° as contrasted with Chicago’s 73°.
Philip did not find this main building as interesting as the aquarium part. There were many models of fish, but they seemed very tame after the live ones. In the Netherlands exhibit (as, indeed, in most of them) was a model fishing-boat, but Philip did not know enough entirely to comprehend the purpose of the different devices shown, so he gave them only a glance. The exhibits of nets were likewise of small interest to him, though a fisherman would, no doubt, have been long entangled in their meshes.
The red disk on a white field that again marked the Japanese show promised him more entertainment, and he entered the inclosure. Here he found several fine little models, the most novel being that displaying the method of fishing with cormorants. A little boat full of fishermen was upon the painted waves, and in the bow was a torch made of an iron basket wherein flamed some material that had been soaked in oil. In the model this was represented by dyed wool. Each fisherman held in his hand a cord fastened to a ring fixed tightly around a bird’s neck. The birds were swimming about and diving for fish. When a fish was caught, the bird was hauled in, deprived of his prey, and sent out to try again.
There were in cases different kinds of fish-hooks, twisted and turned into all European shapes, besides some eccentric ones of their own, spoons and other devices for trolling, snells and lines, not very different from those used in America and Europe. Their sail-boats differed, however, from ours in the way the sails were made. Instead of being in one piece, the sails were in perpendicular strips fastened together by a network of cords so as to leave open spaces.
Philip saw a young Japanese (he looked young, but may have been fifty) who was eating lunch in a corner of the room, and asked him the reason of this arrangement. “To hold wind less,” he said; but the American boy was not quite satisfied, for he could not see why a smaller sail would not meet the same need. He thought it more likely that the sails were so made in order to stow away more easily. The Japanese boy saw nothing queer in the boats, but Philip’s camera was to him a great wonder, and he politely asked an explanation of its working. This Philip gave, and took the little Jap’s picture in the course of his lecture on cameras. He also gave the foreigner a memorandum of the name and price of the camera, whereupon courteous Japan presented a catalogue of the exhibit and a business card.
In the main hall the State of Washington had hung an enormous “humpbacked whale” skeleton nearly forty-eight feet long, and showed the jaws of another as a gateway to its inclosure. Norway showed great harpoons and guns to project them. Baltimore, Ireland (a critical passer-by said, “How very Irish to have a Baltimore in Ireland!”), showed a model fishing-school, a set of tiny buildings with little dolls at work making nets. The dolls’ idiotic faces took away all likeness of the exhibit to nature; and Philip, just from the tiny Japanese fishermen, so perfectly modeled, thought the difference spoke strongly in proof of the artistic sense of Japan.
Philip examined the models of German fishing-craft, and was particularly curious to know about a small boat moored to a tiny tree, one of three trunks below the surface of the water. He consulted the label, and found out that this was a “Miesmuschelzucht in der Kieler Bucht,” and with that information written down carefully he departed, satisfied to wait until he had more time and a German dictionary.
More netting exhibits—“strings and things”—did not long delay Philip, who had caught sight of the space covered with green cloth where Gloucester, Massachusetts, had arranged her boats and buildings so that one could understand how they contributed to the comfort of mankind and themselves. A lobster-packing house had made the same attempt to inform the world just how the poor lobster came to be caught, canned, and sent to table; but here some cheap dolls again marred the effect of the well-made apparatus.
North Carolina showed a “rush camp,” a round hut of rushes in which had been put the proper fittings to show what accommodations their fishermen made for themselves. Mexico had a display that may have been worth seeing, but Philip noticed the fence only, which was a clever bit of work. As he left the Fisheries Building, he felt that, like the others, its display was too good and too full to be appreciated by any but experts—for whom, probably, it was especially prepared.
He felt sure that every man or boy who went to the Fair saw some device or method that he would either adopt or improve in his own work. With a people so quick of apprehension and so inventive as Americans, the benefits arising from the World’s Fair must be beyond exaggeration.
After leaving the Fisheries, Philip made up his mind to give the Government Building a good two hours of his day. He had passed through it several times, but he had never examined thoroughly the guns and wax Indians and mail-wagons which seemed especially provided for the delight of boys. Now he was glad that he had saved up the pleasure.
The Government Building was as crowded as the Fisheries had been, but Philip pressed slowly along, catching sight first of a fishing-boat and the figures of two men in it arranging their shad-nets. The Patent-office exhibit, which he had promised himself much joy in looking over, he found almost too confusing, as had Harry before him. So he passed quickly through this section and reached the exhibit of the Post-office Department, where one could see at a glance every possible way of carrying the mail, from an old stage-coach to the latest mail-car.
The Smithsonian Institution and the Ordnance Department of the United States Army exhibited what Philip felt were really just the most interesting things he had seen in the whole Fair. The groups of wax Indians, the great guns, the army-wagons, and the dog-sledges were surrounded by groups of delighted people of all ages.
Then Philip decided that he would go to the Japanese tea-house, taking in the beautiful model Japanese house on the Wooded Island. He found the model house, but it took him fully twenty minutes to find the tea-house, with four consultations of his map; and while seeking it he saw the Brazilian Building for the first time, although he must have passed it again and again. This will give some idea of the size of the Fair, for that building is 140 feet high, 148 feet long, and of equal width.
In the Japanese tea-house Philip sat upon a wicker stool, and received a cup of “ceremonial tea,” a half-pound of the tea, a wafer, some sweetmeats, a souvenir, and elaborate courtesy. He also received a ticket entitling him to enter the tea-houses where the cheaper tea was served. After a long rest within this pretty inclosure, Philip took the electric launch to the southern part of the park, where he wandered about, taking an occasional snap-shot, until he felt his legs would no longer submit to be imposed upon. He went home very weary; but he was getting used to that.