216 The New Tewvple of Industry. 



as a background for the pictures, and the cove is tinted to cor- 

 respond, the cornices and soffits being vellum- colour, relieved 

 with maroon lines and ornaments. The wall round the arches 

 is also ornamented, but the general decoration of these galleries 

 was obliged to be curtailed, from the necessity of their being 

 used for the arrangement of the pictures. 



The Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, as before 

 stated, are the legal proprietors of the site on which this build- 

 ing is raised — the ground having been bought out of the sur- 

 plus (about one hundred and eighty-six thousand pounds) 

 arising from the first Great International Exhibition. The in- 

 vestment of that sum in South Kensington land has proved 

 so fortunate, that the old Commissioners, by making roads, 

 letting ground on building leases, and their arrangement with 

 the Horticultural Society, must certainly have doubled their 

 capital. 



To secure the greater portion of this remaining site for a 

 third proposed Exhibition in 1872, they have agreed to reserve 

 about sixteen acres of it for that purpose on receiving ten 

 thousand pounds by way of ground- rent. It is already agreed 

 that a lease shall be granted to the Society of Arts of the cen- 

 tral portion of the picture-gallery, one acre in extent, along the 

 Cromwell Road, for ninety-nine years, on condition thab 

 ground-rent to the amount of two hundred and forty pounds per 

 annum be paid to them, and that the building be given up un- 

 reservedly for the use of the Exhibition in 1872. 



The work of building this new temple of industry was given 

 to Messrs. Kelk and Lucas, under an arrangement with the 

 Commissioners of 1862 that is very like a partnership. The 

 whole responsibility for the execution of the works rested with 

 the contractors, and the amount they are to receive is contin- 

 gent on the receipts of the Exhibition. The Commissioners 

 have the option of purchasing the building out and out, or of 

 merely paying for the use of it. For the rent of the building a 

 sum of two hundred thousand pounds is guaranteed absolutely ; 

 if the receipts exceed four hundred thousand pounds, the con- 

 tractors are to be paid one hundred thousand pounds more for 

 rent, and if the sum is fully paid, then the centre acre of the 

 great picture-galleries is to be left as the property of the So- 

 ciety of Arts. The contractors are also bound, if required, to 

 sell the whole for a further sum of one hundred and thirty 

 thousand pounds, thus making its total cost four hundred and 

 thirty thousand pounds. Captain Fowke's original design, 

 with the great hall and central dome, was estimated to cost five 

 hundred and ninety thousand pounds. This hall was to have 

 been placed immediately behind the middle entrance of the 

 south front, and was to have been live hundred feet long, two 



