THE FISH & FISHERIES BUILDING is one of the largest and most artistic of the Exposition palaces, and embraces a large central structure with two smaller polygonal buildings connected with it on either end by arcades. The extreme length is 1,100 feet and the width 200 feet. It is located to the northward of the U. S. Government Building. In the central portion is the general Fisheries exhibit. In one of the polygonal buildings is the Angling exhibit and in the other the large Aquaria. To the close observer the exterior of the building cannot fail to be exceedingly interesting, for the architect, Henry Ives Cobb, of Chicago, exerted all his ingenuity in arranging innumerable forms of capitals, modillions, brackets, cornices and other ornamental details, using only fish and other sea forms for its motif of design. The roof of the building is of old Spanish tile, and the side walls of pleasing color. The cost is about $200,000. In the center of the polygonal building is a rotunda 60 feet in diameter, in the middle of which is a basin or pool 26 feet wide, from which rises a towering mass of rocks, covered with moss and lichens. From clefts and crevices in the rocks crystal streams of water gush and drop to the masses of reeds, rushes, and ornamental semi-aquatic plants in the basin below. In this pool gorgeous gold fishes, golden ides, golden tench, and other fishes disport. From the rotunda, one side of the large series of Aquaria may be viewed.
