Chatsworth. 91 



plnmieri with fine lilac blue flowers, eight feet high; a Ian- 

 tana eight feet high, eight feet broad, and with its thousands 

 of little golden heads of flowers, made the greatest show in the 

 conservatory. Many other rare plants are contained in the 

 collection but were not now in flower. In the division to the 

 left of the entrance an Indian jungle is formed; in that to the 

 right, there is an imitation of an Italian orange grove, 

 hedged with the agave. From the Indian jungle a flight 

 of steps lead to the gallery up steep rock-work, covered 

 with ferns, mosses, and plants of all kinds. An aquarian 

 is formed at the base of this rock-work of the celebrated 

 Devonshire tufa, and in it iVymphsea cserulea and Limno- 

 charis Humbolti^ were growing finely. A hedge of the 

 Musa Cavendishii borders the cross walk, and the further 

 divisions from the entrance are filled with the Bamboo, the 

 sugar cane. «fcc. The stage between the outer walk and the 

 building was filled with cactuses and other succulents, and a 

 variety of plants. But we should occupy quite too much 

 room to name every thing we saw. 



The heating apparatus is wholly beneath the house, quite 

 out of sight: and the smoke from the six furnaces is con- 

 ducted through an under-ground chimney to some distance 

 where it is discharged without being seen from the con- 

 servatory. A broad place was cleared from the forest for 

 the site now occupied; it is surrounded by a kind of em- 

 bankment of turf which slopes towards the building. On 

 these slopes are planted rhododendrons, and in the level beds 

 near the two ends, are groups of calceolarias, roses, verbe- 

 nas, petunias, &c. The only fault we could reasonably find 

 with this immense conservatory viewed from the outside was, 

 the color of the exterior wood-v/ork ; this was pea-green ! 

 the effect of this was to destroy all idea of strength by 

 which such a colossal structure was held together. The ob- 

 ject was undoubtedly to give the wood- work a lighter ap- 

 pearance ; but this should have been done by painting it in 

 imitation of some kind of wood, or simply of some soft and 

 neutral tint. We mention this subject to guard any of our 

 readers against similar errors of good taste. As regards the 

 fitness of such structures for plants, it may be asked in what 

 condition were the plants? as a general remark, not well; 



