430 THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



high. Running entirely around this conservatory, at a 

 height of twenty feet, is a gallery five feet in width. On 

 the north and south sides are four forcing-houses. Each 

 house is 100 x 30 feet, and covered with a curved roof of 

 iron and glass. From the vestibules, at the centre of the 

 east and west ends, ornamental stairways lead to the 

 internal galleries of the conservatory, as well as to the four 

 external galleries, each 100 x 80 feet, which surmount the 

 roofs of the forcing-houses. These external galleries are 

 connected by a fine promenade, formed by the roofs of the 

 rooms on the ground floor, and having a superficial area of 

 1800 square yards. The east and west entrances are 

 reached by flights of blue marble steps, from terraces 

 80 X 20 feet. This building cost $251,937." At the four 

 corners of this building were situated, in 1876, four large 

 rooms. The two eastern rooms have been converted into a 

 temperate house by the removal of the outer wood-work and 

 the substitution of glass. Of the two western rooms, one 

 is used as an office, the other as a museum, which is never 

 opened to the public. On the terrace to the north is found 

 the lily-pond; to the south a range of greenhouses and 

 propagating frames, and to the west the celebrated sunken 

 garden. The main propagating greenhouses and frames 

 are removed from the hall a considerable distance toward 

 the north-east. According to the " Official Catalogue," * 

 the architect of this building was H. J. Schwarzman ; the 

 contractor, John Rice, of Philadelphia ; the wrought iron 

 being furnished by the Keystone Bridge Company, Pitts- 

 burg, Pennsylvania ; the cast iron by Samuel J. Cresswell, 



* International Exhibition, 1876, Official Catalogue, Complete in One Volume. 

 Philadelphia, 1876. 



