less doubtful, while the third, alone, presents the limpidity and
transparency which one has a right to demand in potable water.
Nevertheless, one should not believe, as many persons do, that the water
that we see in this reservoir, and which has been taken within the
limits of Paris, is the same that is distributed from time to time
through each quarter. The water there used is taken up-stream and before
it has been soiled by its passage through the suburbs and city.

In the same pavilion the Administration has exhibited the plans and the
comparative views of the city taken at different epochs since 1789 up to
the last months of 1889. We here see the march of progress in this
immense city, expanding without cessation like a drop of oil, and as it
enlarges crossed by great arteries which establish across its mass
conduits for aeration, and at the same time suppress the agglomerations
of former days.

For artists and archæologists and lovers of old Paris, whom these new
transformations displease and who regret the picturesque past, the
authorities have had the forethought to paint or photograph before
demolition the quarters which to-day have disappeared, or are on the
point of disappearing; and as a consolation such persons have very
pretty pictures by M. Pansyer, representing St. Julien le Pauvre, the
Rue Galande, the Place Maubert, the ruins of the Opéra Comique, the
flower-covered relics of the Cour de Comptes; and there has even been
evoked for them the manor-houses of Clichy and Monceau such as they were
in 1789, and also the quarter of the Bastile, which can thus be compared
with their present aspect. Not far from these antiquities the City of
Paris has exhibited some decorative paintings executed for its various
_mairies_, the "Abreuvoir" and the "Lavoir" of M. D. A. Baudoin, and for
the _Mairie_ d' Arcueil-cachan "L' Automne et l'Ete," by M. A. Séon;