320 
POPULAlt SCIENCE IlEVIEW. 
five acres, will be found articles of every possible description, 
and her Majesty’s Commissioners have spared neither labour 
nor expense in making ample provision for the extraordinary 
demands that have been made upon them. It was found, 
however, that seven times the space provided, gigantic as that 
is, would be required to meet all the demands of the exhibitors, 
and the Commissioners have been compelled reluctantly to cut 
down the allotments, in many cases, to one-third or one-fourth 
of what was required by exhibitors. 
The most prominent feature of the original design prepared by 
Captain Fowke was a Great Hall, 500 feet long, 250 feet wide, and 
210 feet high, behind the principal entrance on the south side. 
The cost of the building, as then estimated, was £590,000, which 
exceeded the means that the Commissioners could reasonably 
expect to have placed at their disposal, and the Great Hall 
was, therefore, abandoned. The general plan of the present 
design consists of a great Nave with Transepts at each end, 
whilst at the intersection of these are the two immense domes, 
which form the chief features of the east and west fronts. The 
nave is 800 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 1 00 feet high, or four 
feet less than the great central transept of the Exhibition of 
1851. It is supported by coupled cast-iron columns, fifty feet 
high, and at distances of twenty-five feet apart, on which rest 
the great arched ribs of the roof and the horizontal girders of 
the galleries, as shown in Plate XVIII., Fig. 1. 
The Picture Galleries, the finest and most extensive in 
Europe, are permanent buildings of brick, 50 feet wide and 
nearly 1,200 feet long. They extend the whole length of the 
Exhibition facing the Cromwell-road, and form a magnificent 
series of apartments. The principal entrance to these spacious 
galleries is through a hall, 150 feet long by 1 10 feet wide, leading 
to the inner courts, and also to the stairs which conduct to the 
galleries above and diverge from the entrance on either side. 
In the designs for the galleries great care was taken in regard 
to fight and ventilation, so essential to the inspection and pre- 
servation of pictures. On ascending the stairs, the visitor 
enters a vestibule of the same proportions as the hall below, 
and from this point is obtained an unbroken vista through the 
whole extent of the gallery ; and it is difficult to conceive a more 
imposing effect than the noble proportions of the galleries on 
both sides. 
An eminent writer, in describing it, states that — 
“ On entering the front, on either side the visitor will find himself in a 
spacious hall, 325 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 43 feet high. Passing through 
this, he will enter one of the wing towers, which forms a room 52 by 45 feet, 
and 66 feet high ; he will then enter another room, 75 feet long and of the 
same width and height as the first, from which lie will pass into the end 
