Nature and Art, April 1, 1867.] 
THE PARIS EXHIBITION OF 1807. 
117 
splendour with its neighbours ; here the India 
Board is setting Tip its cases, and the shawls, muslins, 
embroidery, and carpets of our Indian possessions 
need fear no rivals under the sun. England herself, 
too, promises to show more art than usual, or rather 
a greater proportion of art than usual, especially in 
connection with house and ecclesiastical decoration. 
The Art-Manufactures court is beginning to take 
shape, and promises to be rich in decorative work 
in wood, metal, and terra-cotta; but the great show 
of works in the last-named material is to be found 
elsewhere. In the great machine court, two speci- 
mens of the new Museum at South Kensington, now 
being erected, attract attention, and the pieces of 
terra-cotta are much admired for their colour and 
the sharpness of their outlines : when finished, 
these architectural specimens will be sixty feet high. 
Another kindred work is just commenced in the 
garden; namely, the temple to shelter the boilers 
which are to supply the machinery of the British 
department with steam. The boilers are all in their 
places, and the columns, which are of terra cotta 
and each in one piece eight or nine feet high, very 
slender and highly decorated, are now being set up. 
If the other parts of the structure are as good as the 
columns, — and the mass of pieces of terra-cotta seem 
to promise that they will be, — this temple will be 
one of the attractions of the park. 
Close at hand is the Queen’s Pavilion, as it was 
first named, or the English Cottage, as it is now 
generally called. It is neither a royal pavilion nor 
a cottage, but it is a characteristic building, exhi- 
biting the features of English domestic architecture, 
the materials of such structures, such as cut bricks 
and tiles, and the methods of construction. Until 
the work is a little further advanced, it is impossible 
to say what will be the general effect ; but the 
details which are finished hold out good promise : 
there are five stacks of chimneys, — one square, the 
others clustered ; and nothing can exceed the ele- 
gance of these monumental chimneys, which are ex- 
tremely complicated in form and beautifully sharp 
in outline ; they are, moreover, capped with terra- 
cotta shafts, some white and others red, which are 
singularly graceful. Workmen are now busy 
decorating the front with encaustic tiles and tile 
mosaics, which are at once novel in style and gay 
in effect. 
In the French part of the park the Renaissance 
house is now a very picturesque and beautiful 
object ; it is a large structure, with a rusticated 
basement of imitation stone — beton agglomere , — two 
main floors, and a dormer story. In the front is a 
projecting bay with gable, and at one corner a 
large tower, which will probably support a belvedere; 
the roof is sharply pitched and overhanging, the 
dormer windows are very bold, and beneath is an 
elegant veranda or balcony. The whole framework 
of the house is of oak, charmingly designed, and 
put together in a most artistic manner, and the 
whole of the woodwork is unmasked, the interstices 
between the timbers being very small and filled in 
with plaster, party-coloured white and grey. 
The Sultan’s mosque is another elegant building 
approaching completion. It has a graceful dome and 
a tall minaret, with the muezzin gallery. Two of 
the angles of the building have circular pavilions pro- 
jecting boldly from the main structure, and these, 
as well as the door and windows, are profusely 
decorated with arabesque ornamentation. It is a 
complete reproduction of the Eastern mosque, down 
to the small grated window, whose office seems 
rather to exclude than to admit light. 
Behind the mosque of his suzerain stands the 
imposing group of buildings of the Pasha of Egypt, 
which have already been partially described in the 
columns of Nature and Art. The interior of 
the Great Temple is being covered with copies 
of the mural paintings of Upper Egypt, and the 
exterior is elaborately decorated in colours, the 
caps of the columns of the front representing the 
face of the goddess who seems to have held in 
Egypt the place of the “ goddess Juno with the 
cow’s fail' eyes.” The building which is to in- 
clude an Eastern cafe and the Yiceroy’s pavilion, is 
also appi’oaching completion, and will present a 
rich mass of Oriental decoration analogous to that 
of the Sultan’s mosque. Still further in the rear is 
the Fellah dwelling, with its cattle-shed, which is 
intended to exhibit the habitation and arrangement 
of a peasant dwelling of Lower Egypt at the 
present day. The Itussian and Swedish structures 
are now almost completely finished, and create 
great interest ; but as these have already been 
described in our columns, notice of the details 
connected with them must be deferred to a future 
period. One of the most conspicuous buildings is 
that of the Bey of Tunis ; it is a structure as large 
as the town-hall of a great city, and will contain 
not only a museum, but workshops, a collection of 
wild animals, and a divan for the Bey, should he 
visit Paris. It is rectangulax - , with small cupolas 
on each side of the fagade, and a bold flight of horse- 
shoe-shaped steps leading to the grand entrance. 
At the other end of the park the Dutch Com- 
mission has just completed a special gallery for its 
pictures, and a workshop in which the process of 
cutting and polishing diamonds is to be exhibited. 
The Swiss, too, are hard at work on their picture 
gallery. 
The French electric iron lighthouse has the 
framework of its lantern in place, and forms a 
very striking feature in another corner. This will 
not be the only electric lighthouse in the park ; the 
English Commission has brought over the frame- 
work of another, in wood, which will be erected 
immediately, so that two systems will be sub- 
mitted to the judgment of the assembled world. 
The reserved garden , or, in other words, the 
horticultural portion of the Exhibition, exhibits as 
much, if not more, progress than any other 
portion ; the hothouses and conservatories, one of 
very large size, are neai’ly all finished, and some are 
being glazed : they amount to twenty or more in 
number, and are of all forms and sizes. 
The two great aquariums are also finished as 
regards the main portions of their structure ; and 
now that the whole of their arrangement is visibly 
