months, to cover eighteen acres of ground,
with a building upwards of a third of a
mile long (1851 feet—the exact date of the
year), and some four hundred and fifty feet
broad. In order to do this, the glass-maker
promised to supply in the required time,
nine hundred thousand square feet of glass,
(weighing more than four hundred tons) in
separate panes, and these the largest that
ever were made of sheet glass; each being
forty-nine inches long. The iron-master
passed his word in like manner to cast in
due time three thousand three hundred iron
columns, varying from fourteen and a half
feet to twenty feet in length: thirty-four
miles of guttering tube, to join every
individual column together under the ground;
two thousand two hundred and twenty-four
girders (but some of these are of wrought iron);
besides eleven hundred and twenty-eight bearers
for supporting galleries. The carpenter
undertook to get ready within the specified
period two hundred and five miles of sash-bar;
flooring for an area of thirty-three millions
of cubic feet; besides enormous quantities of
wooden walling, louvre work, and partition.*
*The quantities and dimensions here quoted are those
of the building as it now stands. They differ but slightly
from Mr. Paxton's original specification.

It is not till we reflect on the vast sums
of money involved in transactions of this
magnitude, that we can form even a slight
notion of the great, almost ruinous, loss a
trifling arithmetical error would have
occasioned, and of the boundless confidence the
parties must have had in their resources
and in the correctness of their computations.
Nevertheless it was one great merit in
Mr. Paxton's original details of measurement
that they were contrived to facilitate
calculation. Everything in the great building is a
dividend or multiple of twenty-four. The
internal columns are placed twenty-four feet
apart, while the external ones have no more
than eight feet (a third of twenty-four) of
separation; while the distance between each
of the transept columns is three times twenty-
four, or seventy-two feet. This also is the
width of the middle aisle of the building;
the side aisles are forty-eight feet wide, and
the galleries and corridors twenty-four.
Twenty-four feet is also the distance between
each of the transverse gutters under the roof;
hence, the intervening bars, which are at
once rafters and gutters, are, necessarily,
twenty-four feet long.

There was little time for consideration, or
for setting right a single mistake, were it
ever so disastrous. On the prescribed day
the tender was presented, with whatever
imperfections it might have had, duly and
irredeemably sealed. But, after-checkings,
have divulged no material error. The result
was, that Messrs. Fox and Henderson's offer
for erecting the Paxton edifice proved to be
the lowest practicable tender that was
submitted to the Building Committee.

The public have long known what followed:
—Mr. Paxton's Glazed Palace was eventually
chosen unanimously; not only by the Building
Committee but by the Royal Commission.
Some modifications were, however, adopted.
It was decided that the most revered of the
trees were to be admitted into the Industrial
building; and the central transept—the apex
of whose curvilinear roof is one hundred
and twelve feet from the ground—was
contrived by Mr. Paxton for their inclosure. In
August the space in Hyde Park was boarded
in; and the first castings for the iron columns
were delivered on the fourteenth of September.
Yet, when these pages meet the reader's eye,
the cheapest, most gigantic, and substantial
structure ever dreamt of, will be nearly ready
for decoration.

If for nothing else, this tremendous pile of
transparency is astounding—for its cheapness.
It is actually less costly than an agricultural
barn or an Irish cabin! A division of its
superficies in cubic feet by the sums to be paid for
it, brings out the astonishing quotient, of little
more than one half-penny (nine sixteenths of
a penny) per cubic foot; supposing it to be
taken down and returned to the contractors
when the Exhibition is over. Or, if it remain
a fixture, the rate of cost will be rather less
than a penny and one twelfth of a penny per
cubic foot. The ordinary expense of a barn
is more than twice as much, or two-pence
halfpenny per foot. Here are the figures:—
The entire edifice contains thirty-three
millions of cubic feet. If borrowed and taken
down, the sum to be paid is seventy-nine
thousand eight hundred pounds: if bought,
to become a winter garden, one hundred and
fifty thousand pounds.

The smallness of cost is due to the
principle we have previously explained, of each
component of the building being endowed
with more than one purpose. The six rows
of columns are, as had been already said,
not only props but drains. They are hollow,
and into them the glass roof will deliver
its collections of water. In the base of each
column is inserted a horizontal iron pipe to
conduct the drainage into the sewers. These
strong tubes serve also as foundation; they
are links that connect the whole of the three
thousand three hundred uprights together.
At the top, each column is fastened to its
opposite associate by a girder, run up by
means of a pole and pully in a few minutes;
and, once fastened, no other scaffolding is
requisite for the roof which it supports. Thus,
by means of the iron pipes below, and the
iron girders above, the eighteen acres ot
structure is held from end to end so compact
and fast that it becomes an enormous hollow
cube, as immovable as if it were, instead, a
solid cube dropped down beside Rotten Row
by a gang of Titans.

The roofs—of which there are five, one to
each aisle or corridor, the highest in the
middle—play many parts. They are windows,