490 
the cottage gardener. 
September 20 
specific, therefore, may be an useful palliation, and no 
move. Besides the acid treatment, we have the saline, 
and the mercurial. Calomel and corrosive sublimate in 
the latter, and chlorate of potash, and common salt in 
the former, contain another powerful agent, closely 
allied to oxygen, namely chlorine. The office of this 
gas is not to renew the blood of the living organised 
beings, but it corrects, neutralises, and finally reduces 
dead and putrefying animal aud vegetable excretions 
and offal. All the remains of all living created things 
in the world, carried down by our rivers into the sea, are 
there at last reduced to an elementary condition by this 
universal solvent. But chlorine exists in a very dilute 
i state in the water, and watery vapour of the sea, aud of 
tidal rivers; no wonder that, thanks to our embank¬ 
ments aud weirs, and excessive population, and excessive 
filth, these river mouths are distinguished not for their 
excess of chlorine, but for an utter inadequacy of supply 
to meet the enormous demand. Hence, their unhealth- 
iness. 
But it is not enough to propose chlorine as a remedy 
for the putrefaction, decay, and turning to death, already 
commencing inside the body; the thing is, how to 
convey it to the seat of war. We have in calomel just 
the sort of combination to pass, unaltered, along the 
healthy surface of the bowels, until it reaches the place 
where the vital resistance is weakest, and where chemical 
changes, and putrefaction, and decomposition begins to 
assert the inferiority of physical over vital laws. We 
prefer to consider the metal in calomel as acting nearly 
the part of a conductor to the curative agent chlorine. 
We are, therefore, still a long way off discovering a 
true antidote for cholera; and there may not be so very 
great a difference after all between the high science of 
the hospital physician and the old routine plan of com¬ 
bating the symptoms as they arise ; if there be a bad 
smell, use chloride of lime; if looseness, give an as¬ 
tringent. If the skin gets cold, apply heat—hot bricks, 
hot flannels sprinkled with turpentine ; if there be great 
depression, give brandy, &c. 
Science can tell us how to prevent disease; it can 
help us a little to do away with its effects, to palliate its 
injuries, to gain time to enable Nature to rally; but the 
I cure, the event must greatly be left to Him in whose 
hand are the issues of life and death. It is useless to 
! repine at the limited extent of our knowledge, so long 
as we do not act upon the knowledge which we profess; 
and with respect to the differences of opinion among 
physicians, the same holds good that Jeremy Taylor 
has said respecting divines. Instead of making so 
much to do about the few points on which some differ, 
let us make rather more of the many points on which 
all are equal. J. J. 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
About this time two years back people began to ask 
me, “ Have you been to the Crystal Palace yet? ” and, 
as I take it, they did so on the same principle as they 
do in Scotland; when a “ body meets a body,” and wishes 
to draw him into conversation, he brings out the snuff¬ 
box. Some were surprised, “of course,” to find that I 
was not more curious, or more interested, in the pro¬ 
gress of the work. “ Of course ” I could obtain free 
admission from Sir Joseph Paxton, who never “ turns 
his back” on an old acquaintance. But, “ of course,” 
all this is but the old story over again, about your having 
a friend at court, in parliament, or in the vestry, and 
your particular interest ought to be his peculiar study, ! 
“ of course.” But, “ of course,” also, “ Auld Lang Syne” ! 
was never meant to cover impertinence. I would much ' 
rather ask favours of a perfect stranger than of Sir 
Joseph, under the circumstances, on the plea of “birds 
of a feather,” than on the strength of old acquaintance¬ 
ship from any one. Besides, all the great details were 
given out in the newspapers as early as the autumn of 
1852, aud from time to time subsequently—and such 
details, too, as were more complete for the mind’s eye 
than those which were detailed in the first Guide Book, 
at the opening of the Crystal Palace, to the eyes of any 
of us. With the exception of the steepness of the 
grounds, the undulations in it, and the general eleva¬ 
tions of the Palace itself, I had as clear an idea of the 
whole, from these reports, as I have now after spending 
two days there. I shall, therefore, recapitulate the 
heads of those details for the use of such as have not 
yet seen the Crystal Palace. 
Early in the autumn of 1852, we were told that the 
Crystal Palace would stand east and west, on the crest 
of a hill, facing the south, and looking over a large ex¬ 
tent of a finely wooded country ; that there would be 
three transepts at right angles with the ridge of the hill; 
that two long wings would stretch out into the grounds, 
one from each end of the building; that the “court” 
thus formed by three sides of the Palace would be laid 
out in “ an enormous parterre, enriched with statuary 
and fountains; ” that the main walk would lead down 
from the front door of the Palace, in the centre of the 
middle transept, by flights of granite steps, through the 
ten-ace-garden, and right down to the bottom of the 
ground, where it would “ lose itself” round a large cir¬ 
cular basin at the bottom; that both sides of this prin¬ 
cipal walk would be alive with devices of water, aud em 
bellished with statuary and flower-beds; that after pass¬ 
ing from the terrace-garden into English landscape, this 
centre walk would be intercepted by a grand circular 
basin, placed in the very middle of it, in which basin 
the grandest of all grand displays of “water-work” 
would be exhibited; that, passing onwards, two temples 
of iron and glass would rise a little in advance of the 
grand fountain, one on each side of the grand leading 
walk; that these iron-and-glass temples would cover 
groups of statuary, and would be covered themselves, in 
part, by climbers, and at times by thin films of water, 
returning from a gushing in the dome; that a wide 
“ step by step ” cascade would run down hill, on each 
side of the grand walk, from the bottom of the tem¬ 
ples, and “ tumble over ” at the bottom, in the shape 
of waterfalls, into two great reservoirs, which would 
stand at right angles with the central walk; that to 
the right and left of the Temples of the Cascades, and 
at some distance 'from them, would rise two conical 
hills, that to the rigfit would be surmounted by an 
“arcade of arabesque iron-work,” for “ twining” Roses 
(but Roses never twine, they climb); the other, by a 
similar arcade, for “innumerable” climbers (and most 
of them will twine); that parallel to the grand central 
walk, two secondary walks would lead from the upper 
terrace-walk opposite the side transepts, down through 
the terrace-garden and “transition” ground, to two 
circular basrns, not quite so low down as the graud 
circular basin in the middle walk; that, thus, one great 
geometrical line ran right through the whole garden, 
from the front door of the Palace, and two paralel lines 
