SECRETARY'S REPORT. 365 



I proceeded to Lincoln, the shire town, and attended service in 

 its old and interesting; cathedral, when it occurred to me tliat I 

 had missed Chatsworth, which I should have taken while at 

 Birmingham, That was a place I was particularly desirous to 

 see, and so taking the train for Sheffield, where I took time to 

 visit some of the larger cutlery establishments, and left the 

 smoky town early in the morning for Chatsworth. 



The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, in Derbyshire, is prob- 

 ably one of the finest of the kind in England, both in its inte- 

 rior decorations and its beauty without. The noble mansion 

 is full of interest, containing fine galleries of paintings, magnifi- 

 cent statues and vases of the most costly description, and many 

 souvenirs of great value. The library contains thirty or forty 

 tliousand volumes. The great painting of Flying Childers 

 hangs on the wall of one of the rooms. Tiie estate at Chats- 

 worth contains thirty-five thousand acres, siX' thousand around 

 the house are laid out with very great taste. Tiie Duke, it is 

 said, owns ninety-five thousand acres in Derbyshire. The 

 gardens of Chatsworth are very extensive and laid out with 

 consummate skill. The kitchen garden of twelve acres con- 

 tains many fine graperies, which were full of fruit. The great 

 glass conservatory, built by Sir Joseph Paxton, and which 

 furnished the design for the crystal palace of 1851, is three 

 hundred and eighty-seven feet long, four hundred and seven- 

 teen broad, and thirty-seven feet high, and contains seventy-six 

 thousand square feet of glass, and seven miles of pipes for 

 heating with water. It contains an aquarium for water plants. 

 All the plants are of the rarest description. The duke sent a 

 special messenger to India to get one flowering shrub, which it 

 is said is valued at ten thousand dollars. A great fountain 

 throws water two hundred feet high. But the splendid artifi- 

 cial cascade is perhajis the most remarkable feature of the 

 landscape garden. The water falls first from a very high hill 

 down a precipice of twenty feet, when it is hidden among trees 

 till it is seen coming down another precipice of thirty feet, in 

 a different direction ; then it pours over the top of a high 

 tower, in a single sheet of sixty feet, and boils up over a grotto, 

 forming several beautiful jets, when it comes down in a rushing 

 cascade a kind of stairs, forming an inclined plane of two or 

 three hundred feet, and sinks in the ground at your feet. 



