Little did those visitors to the Fair know whence came the hot fires of Libbey's Glass House. They little knew that oil was drawn in pipes from Ohio, and that one hundred and fifty barrels of petroleum lay buried under innocent-looking grass, that looked up and asked not to be trodden under foot.
Of course, had lightning struck those two great hidden tanks of liquid dynamite, we should all have been sent to that bourne whence no World's Fair visitor could have returned.
Seventy-five barrels of oil were burned daily on the Midway Plaisance. How many gallons? Three thousand. Multiply one day's fire by one hundred and eighty days and you discover that the drama of glass at the Fair was the death of fifty-four thousand gallons of petroleum.
Ever since the era of fairy tales the world has heard of glass slippers. Cinderella wore them and great was the romance thereof. But whoever before 1893 heard of a glass dress, and who conceived such a novel idea?