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range, was truly remarkable. The following were the numbers said to be employed within the building daily about the end of Sep

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These numbers do not include the workmen employed by Messrs. Fox and Henderson, and others, on the premises; nor the persons connected with the Catalogue Department; nor the extra police, &c., employed outside the building. About eighty persons were in the building all night, viz.:-Fifty policemen, twenty-four sappers and miners, and six firemen; the latter had the command of an abundant supply of fire engines, hydrants, and buckets. The sweepers were employed six hours every morning, sweeping the building before the visitors arrived.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

From persons daily employed in the building, we will turn to the Building itself, in respect to dimensions and quantities.

The extreme length of the Building is 1851 feet, corresponding with the year of the Exhibition. The width 408; with an additional projection on the north side, 936 feet long by 48 wide. The central portion is 120 feet wide by 64 high; on either side of this is another portion 72 feet wide by 44 high; and the north and south portions are 72 feet wide by 24 high. The portions or great avenues here described run east and west through the building; very near the centre the transept crosses, with a width of 72 feet and a height of 108. The entire area is 772,784 square feet, or about 19 acresnearly seven times as much as St. Paul's Cathedral. The entire ground area is divided off into a central nave, four side aisles, and several exhibitors' courts and avenues. There are 3 entrances, with 8 pay places to each, and 18 doors for exit. There are 4 galleries running lengthwise of the building, and others around the transept; and access is gained to these galleries by 10 double staircases.

The iron columns in the building, with their connecting pieces, are about 20 and 24 feet high, respectively; they are about 3,300 in number; and there are 1,074 base pieces beneath the columns, on which the whole structure rests. The girders are of three different lengths, 24, 48, and 72 feet; and of five different weights, 12,

13, 35, 120, and 160 cwts.; they are nearly 3,500 in number. Altogether there is about 4,000 tons of iron built into the structure. In the woodwork for the glass roof, the Paxton gutters are arranged 8 feet apart, with a ridge between every two. The squares of glass are 49 inches by 10. Besides the 17 acres of glass for the roof (none being wanted for the open courts), there are about 1,500 vertical glazed sashes. The ground floor and the galleries contain 1,000,000 square feet of flooring. There are 200 miles of sash bars, and 20 miles of Paxton gutters. The total woodwork in the building is estimated at 600,000 cubic feet.

THE EXHIBITORS, AND THE ARTICLES EXHIBITED.

Dr. Lyon Playfair's classification of the objects admitted to the Exhibition is perhaps the most elaborate analysis of industrial and productive Art that has yet been made. It has been objected to, as insufficient on some points and redundant on others; but so have all the classifications ever attempted; and it seems hopeless to expect either a catalogue of a large library, or a classification of substances and products, that shall satisfy all requirements.

There has not been the formality of classes, orders, genera, species, &c., as in natural history; but there has been a somewhat analogous subordination adopted. There were, in the first place, four great sections, devoted to Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufactures, and Fine Arts. The first of these was subdivided into four, the second into six, and the third into nineteen; so that the whole made thirty classes. These thirty classes were next subdivided into (on an average) about eight portions each, there being 251 portions, each designated (in its own class) by a letter of the alphabet. Each portion or letter is next subdivided into smaller portions, designated by numerals; and these smaller portions are lastly subdivided into species, minute enough to need no further classification. For instance, Section 3 comprises Manufactures; one Class of this is devoted to Manufactures in Animal and Vegetable substances; the letter A of this class is Manufactures in Caoutchouc; No. 1 under this letter is Impermeable articles (as distinguished from elastic); and particular species under this numeral are boots, beds, life buoys, air cushions, &c. In the final analysis there are not much less than 2,000 headings, under which products are classified in this remarkable list.

But though this classification was made the basis for the arrangement of the Exhibition, it would be scarcely possible to determine the number of articles deposited. The difficulty arises not from any deficiency of registry or tabulation on the part of the Executive; but from the uncertainty as to what constitutes an "article" in such an enumeration. Let us take Messrs. Minton's contributions, as an example. In the Official or Shilling Catalogue the whole of these contributions are lumped together in one article or entry, forming, No. 1 in class 25. In the Illustrated Catalogue, on the contrary, these contributions are divided into seventy-four, which are numbered from 1 to 74 consecutively. Again, one of these seventyfour contributions, the exquisite dessert service, consisted of

perhaps a hundred separate pieces; while another item, No. 32, consisted of " a variety of tea cups and saucers, dessert and dinner plates, and déjeûner sets." It will therefore be seen that several points would have to be agreed upon, before we could determine how many "articles" Messrs. Minton contributed. As another example, Müller of Oberleutensdorf, in Bohemia, sent over a package containing 194 kinds of boxes of children's toys, with soldiers, animals, tea things, and all the customary contents of such boxes; and as a third, Peter Harass sent from Saxony a package of cases, the cases containing boxes, and the boxes containing lucifers and splints for lucifers-what is the unit, the "article," in such instances as these? The Jury Council, in their Report to the Royal Commissioners, said that the duties of the jurors had " involved the consideration and judgment of at least a million articles;" this tells much for the untiring zeal of the jurors, but it does not show how the units of the million were determined.

As some of the articles were exhibited by governments, societies, and companies, and others by unnamed persons, the exact number of exhibitors cannot be given; but it appears to have been about 15,000.

THE OFFICIAL CATALOGUES.

The preparation of the Official Catalogue was one of the most trying difficulties connected with the whole Exhibition. The contractors were dependent not simply on one, or a dozen, or a hundred persons-but on fifteen thousand or more, all of whom had to supply the materials with which the catalogue was to be constructed. So overwhelming were the obstructions to be surmounted by the compilers and the printers, that at ten o'clock at night on the 30th of April, within fourteen hours of the opening of the splendid pageant, not a single complete copy was printed!

We will briefly show what it was that the compiler and the compositors had to do, and then speak of the marvels which the steam printing-machine effected.

In the first place the staff, the official directors connected with the catalogue, was a formidable one. The historical introduction was written by one gentleman; the description of the building by another; the classification of subjects was entrusted to a third; the compilation was managed by a fourth; the scientific revision and preparation by a fifth; while the official revision and the sanction for publication were given by a sixth. These six formed a sort of managing committee for the Catalogue. Then came a second body of twenty-four persons, the annotators, whose services were required rather for the Illustrated than for the Shilling Catalogue; they were among the highest scientific men of the day, and bestowed their services, each one in annotating such items as came within the range of his scientific or professional attainments. A third body, of nearly a dozen persons, rendered technical information and miscellaneous assistance of various kinds. There were thus about forty persons, besides clerks and transcribers, employed upon the catalogue,-independent of compositors and printers.

The Executive caused four varieties of blank printed forms to be prepared in different colours-black for raw materials, blue for machinery, red for manufactures, and yellow for fine arts-the four sections into which the Exhibition was divided. Each form contained blank spaces for the exhibitor's name, the country, the address (with the nearest post town), the capacity in which the exhibitor appeared (whether producer, importer, manufacturer, designer, inventor, or proprietor), the number of articles sent by him, and a description. There were also minute directions given, at the back of these papers, of the mode in which the exhibitors should describe their goods, in respect to the commercial and scientific names, locality, uses, consumption, novelty, price, and excellence (if either were remarkable), and so forth. The exhibitor was instructed also, in case he would wish to have illustrations of his goods in the large catalogue, to state whether they would be on steel, on stone, or on wood; and there were also instructions relating to the entries to be made in the French and German editions of the Catalogue. These blank forms were supplied in abundance to foreign countries, to local committees, and to individual exhibitors; and if any persons found difficulty in understanding the instructions, it was from their very minuteness and elaboration rather than from an opposite cause. The exhibitors forwarded these forms and descriptions to the office, one by one, and far more slowly than the editor wished; a receipt was given for each returned form; and this receipt was a guarantee that the articles would be received in the Exhibition.

When the returned forms were examined they were found to present the most incongruous mass imaginable. Fifteen thousand persons, more or less, had become authors for the first time; and calligraphy, orthography, grammar, syntax, science, taste, and good sense, were found to have been subjected to some very rude assaults. Duplicates of all the forms were filled up by the exhibitors; and of each pair, one was kept by the Executive Committee and one by the compilers.

The next point was to divide the forms into thirty groups, according to the classification proposed by Dr. Playfair and adopted by the Commissioners. This was a difficult and tedious task, not only from the natural difficulties which beset all rigorous attempts at classification in such matters, but from the imperfect description given by many of the exhibitors. The task was, however, got through; and the forms were taken in hand, one by one, and "licked into shape." More than 50,000 forms, of one colour or another, were printed, folded, enveloped, directed, and posted; and a notable proportion of this number were filled up, returned, and examined. The chief compiler (who was aided by from one to six subordinates) was occupied (on the various catalogues) nearly six months in his labours; it was about the middle of January that the returned forms began to drop in, and there was a continuous stream till July. Not only was this compilation conducted, but all the returns had to be numbered, tabulated, and registered, deficient duplicates written out, and redundancies cancelled.

When each section was completed (so far as the arrivals permitted)

it was made up into a bundle, and transmitted to Messrs. Clowes' establishment, where the items were "set up" into thirty classes, and proofs struck off in the usual way. The first budget was thus sent to the printers on January 31; and by the 31st of March the number of articles thus catalogued (in the United Kingdom department) was 6,010; by April 22nd it had risen to 6,241. The Colonial lists reached the printers between March 6th and April 21st. The Foreign lists came in between February 3rd and April 23rd; Tunis was the first, Lübeck the second, and Switzerland the third foreign states to return their collected forms-France and the great countries being much later.

The compositors wrought briskly; the proofs were sent sheet by sheet to the compiler, in a very few hours after the MSS. had been supplied. Then ensued a laborious task. The scientific reviser took the proofs in hand, cut them up piecemeal, and allotted them to the various annotators, who subjected each item to an examination and amendment far more extensive than that which had fallen to the duty of the compilers. Scientific and technical inaccuracies, ill construction of sentences, laudatory descriptions, all had to be met and provided for; and brief but instructive "annotations" substituted. In no inconsiderable number of cases the proof was valueless, and the item was entirely re-written. All the revised proofs were returned to the printers, some in little bits of only three or four lines; and it required a most exact and careful system of registry to ensure the safety of these morsels in their transmissions to and fro. The cost occasioned by the numerous alterations and corrections was -on the Shilling Catalogues-five times the original cost of composition; on the French edition, three times; on the German edition, four times; and on the Illustrated Catalogue, somewhat more than twice the original cost.

Most of the details above given relate to the larger or Illustrated Catalogue, in which alone they would appear; but as the Shilling Catalogue was to be a condensed essence, great judgment had to be shown in abbreviating the description to two or three lines each. And it must not be believed that the printers could set to work, striking off sheet after sheet as fast as the condensed slips were set up and revised; they had to wait until all were done, that classification and numbering might be attended to. The last days of April were memorable days, in illustration of the capabilities of our great printing establishments. The Shilling Catalogue was classified, numbered, made up, and 10,000 copies printed and stitched in covers-in four days! The first complete copy was not produced till ten o'clock at night on April 30th; and yet 10,000 were at the Crystal Palace before the arrival of her Majesty on the eventful 1st of May. Two splendid copies, presented to her Majesty and the Royal Consort, were bound and gilt in a sumptuous style in six hours.

The type which had been set up from the annotators' revised proofs, with perhaps an average of eight or ten lines to each item, was that which has produced the Illustrated Catalogue; and the materials contained in these two catalogues have formed the basis

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