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Few will deny the happiness of the adajjtation of this Italian 

 style, or the success with which it has been worked into the 

 general plan of the colonnades surrounding the Garden. The 

 arches are supported on slight double terra-cotta columns of 

 fanciful designs, with capitals and cornices to match, com- 

 bining general effect with beauty and elegance in detail. Mr. 

 Sykes, of the Department of Science and Art, South Kensington, 

 furnished the models for these, and they have been cast in 

 terra-cotta with the combined smoothness of stone and the 

 sharpness of metal. The whole of these, as well as of the 

 capitals of the columns of the Albani or Upper Arcades, were 

 executed by Messrs. Blanchard, of Blackfriars Eoad. 



The deeply encased windows, as we may call the apertures 

 between the double row of spiral columns, are glazed ; the glass 

 being placed between the inner row of columns in a groove 

 left in them for the purpose. Those first executed were glazed 

 with less expensive glass than plate ; but the size and weight 

 of the upper panes, which rest without panels on the lower 

 ones, were found to be so great as to crack them. Plate glass, 

 which is stronger, had therefore to be employed in all those 

 subsequently glazed. The top pane is to be formed of slips 

 of glass placed like the shutters of Venetian bhnds, so as to 

 act as ventilators. The chief portion of these southern arcades 

 was used, in 1862, as refreshment rooms for the International 

 Exhibition. 



The entire extent of the southern arcades is 1687 feet 

 — viz., the portion on the eastern side is 233 feet to the right 

 or north of the portico of the Council-room, and 233 feet to 

 the left of that portico. The dimensions on the western side 



