two hundred and thirty by eighty feet, and
fifty-five high, much the largest in this country, and but a trifle
inferior in height to the palm-houses of Chatsworth and Kew. A gallery
twenty feet from the floor will carry us up among the dates and
cocoanuts that are to be. The decorations of this hall are in keeping
with the external design. The woodwork looks out of place amid so much
of harder material; but there is not much of it.

Outside promenades, four in number and each a hundred feet long, lead
along the roofs of the forcing-houses, and contribute to the portfolio
of lovely views that enriches the Park. Other prospects are offered
by the upper floors of the east and west fronts; the aerial terrace
embracing in all seventeen thousand square feet. The extreme
dimensions of the building are three hundred and eighty by one hundred
and ninety-three feet. Restaurants, reception-rooms and offices
occupy the two ends. The contractor who has performed his work so
satisfactorily is Mr. John Rice.

A few years hence this winter-garden will, with one exception to which
we next proceed, be the main attraction at the Park. It will by that
time be effectively supplemented by thirty-five surrounding acres of
out-door horticulture, to which the soil of decomposed gneiss is well
suited.

Passing from the bloom of Nature, we complete our circuit with that
which springs from the pencil, the chisel and the burin. Here we
alight upon another instance of inadequate calculation. That the
art-section of the exposition would fill a building three hundred and
sixty-five by two hundred and ten feet, affording eighty-nine thousand
square feet of wall-surface for pictures, must, when first proposed,
have struck the most imaginative of the projectors as a dream. The
actual result is that it proved indispensably necessary to provide an
additional building of very nearly equal dimensions, or three hundred
and forty-nine by a hundred and eighty-six feet, to receive the
contributions offered; and this after the promulgation of a strict
requirement that "all works of art must be of a high order of merit."
Half the space in the extension had been claimed by Great Britain,
Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Italy before ground was broken
for its foundation; and recent demands at home have rendered necessary
a further projection of the wings, with the effect of giving to the
building the form of a Greek cross.

This building is on the rear, o