from the masses behind should be regulated
by sectional barriers.

How to find your way out? This may be
a question well worth consideration. Of
course there will be a sufficient number of
exit-doors; but if you have to walk and
struggle through several miles of bazaar-
counters or winding ways, amidst dense
crowds, before you can discover a means of
egress, your amount of pleasure is not likely to
induce a second visit. Mr. Brandon for
instance (No. 207), has beautiful domed temples
and libraries (so they appear) or other "glass
cases," while the ground-plan presents a series
of circuitous batches of stalls, or bazaar-
counters, not unlike large circles of sheep-
pens, except that there is a free passage
between them. Hence, the currents, or rather,
the "rapids," of visitors must inevitably be
going and coming, and jostling, and conflicting;
and others arriving at a dead stand, and
having no chance of progression, or retreat,
without a "trial of strength,"—the whole
producing of necessity an inextricable maze
and confusion, with an impossibility for a
long time of finding a way out, even when
able to move.

This question of the current of visitors, and
of movement in general, is ingeniously settled
by one gentleman, who proposes to have a
railway along the grand central line, for the
conveyance up and down of all sorts of goods
and articles, heavy or light. We presume
that the progress of the carriages and trucks
would be very slow, so that the visitors, when
fatigued, might, at their pleasure, step up to a
seat, and be quietly conveyed along to any part
of the line. This notion has, of course, been
laughed at, and we confess to having amused
ourselves considerably with the "train" of
thought induced by it; but we are not sure,
in the present state of mechanical science,
whether something very commodious might
not result from a modification of the idea.
The fares, if any (and we think there should
be a trifle paid to check reckless crowding),
should not exceed a penny. The inventor
will thus perceive that, if we have laughed,
we have also sympathised, and are quite ready
to get up and have a ride. One gentleman
(Mr. C. H. Smith) proposes to erect three
octagonal vestibules, communicating with all
principal compartments; the roof to be
upheld by suspension chains. Cast-iron frames
are to hold rough glass, laid in plates lapping
over each other, like tiles. This is certainly a
sensible provision against a hail-storm, which
has occurred to no one else, amidst their
prodigalities in glass.

But, amidst all these wonders of 1851, are
there no plain, simple, practical plans sent in?
There are a good many. Some of these are
certainly not very attractive, presenting, as
they do, the appearance of a superior kind of
barracks, hospitals, alms-houses, nursery-
grounds; and one of these plans is laid out
entirely like a series of cucumber-frames, with
shifting lights at top. There are, however,
several of these sober designs which possess
great practical merit, and have preserved a
due consideration of the terms on which the
competition was proposed. Of these, the
Commissioners and Committees have availed
themselves in all respects suited to their own
views and wishes; and out of all these,
combined with their own especial fancies, they
seem likely to produce an interminable range
of cast-iron cow-sheds, having (as a specimen
of the present high state of constructive
genius) an enormous slop-basin, of iron
frame-work, inverted in the centre, as an
attraction for the admiring eyes of all the
nations.

But other problems have to be solved. The
classification and arrangement of the raw
materials, the manufactured articles, the
machinery, and the works of plastic art, is a
question of very great importance. It not
only involves the things themselves, but their
respective countries. Should the productions
of each country be kept separate? This
appears the natural arrangement, or how
should any one make a study of the powers
of any special country. Prince Albert, it
seems, wishes otherwise. He thinks that a
fusion of the productions of all nations will
be more in accordance with the broad general
principle of the Exhibition—more tending to
amalgamate and fraternise one country with
another. This feeling is excellent; but we
fear it would cause an utter confusion, and
amidst the heterogeneous masses, nobody
would be able to make a study of the
productions of any particular nation. An eminent
civil engineer suggests that the productions
of the respective countries should be ranged
together from side to side of the entire width
of the edifice—thus you can at once see the
works of industry of England, France
Germany, America, Switzerland, &c. &c. by
walking up and down from one side to the
other; and you can obtain a collective view
of the works of all these countries by walking
longitudinally, or from end to end of the
building. To some such classification and
arrangement as this, we think, the Committee
will be compelled to have recourse at last.

The other problem to which we adverted, is
one which is not so liable to be solved as
saturated with hot water, and then dragged
from one quarter of the metropolis to another
before it is settled by some arbitrary decision.
We allude to the spot on which the buildings of
the Exhibition are to be erected. Hyde Park
is not unlikely to be a subject of much contest.
The latent idea of preserving the most
important part of the "temporary" structure
has alarmed all the drivers and riders in Hyde
Park, and all those whose windows overlook
it. And no wonder;—to say nothing of the
crowds and stoppages outside the park, and
the slough within, produced by the enormous
traffic of heavy wheels, long before the
Exhibition opens. Battersea Fields was next