BURNING 



OP THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 



The following address, on the occasion of the late disastrous 

 conflagration of the Crystal Palace, was prepared by a special 

 committee, appointed at a meeting of the American Institute on 

 the 15th of October, consisting of Messrs. D. M. Reese, Benjamin 

 Aycrigg, Joseph P. Simpson, Robert Lovett, and James Bogardus, 

 which address was presented to the Institute on the 5th of Novem- 

 ber, adopted, and four thousand copies ordered to be printed for 

 distribution. 



The American Institute of the city of New York has recentlj 

 been visited by a grievous calamity in the destruction of the 

 Crystal Palace by fire. Our Thirtieth Annual Fair and exhibi- 

 tion was in the full tide of successful progress at the time, and 

 that spacious building was overflowing with the evidences and 

 products of American industry, in the various departments of 

 ^'Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures and the Arts." This 

 valuable property of inventors and exhibiters, together with the 

 property of the Institute, to a large amount, was suddenly con- 

 sumed in the overwhelming conflagration, thus, within a single 

 hour, reducing all to a heap of ruins. 



Under such circumstances, one consolation is left us, in the 

 •assurance we are able to give our niembers, friends and patrons, 

 at home and abroad, that this calamitous visitation could neither 

 be foreseen nor averted by any human ingenuity; our Board of 

 Managers, and their employees, having used all the vigilance in 

 their power in providing for the prevention of such a disaster, 

 which can only be ascribed to the torch of an incendiary, against 

 which no possible sagacity could have availed. We find, how- 

 ever, an additional source of congratulation in the fact that wo 

 have no loss of human life to deplore, which would have been a 

 "deeper source of regret to us all had it occurred ; but, although 



