164 LONDON INTEKNATIONAL 
commissioners, architects, contractors and laborers had been 
completed ; the widely distant crystal domes of the mighty 
oalace stood perfected in their unequalled magnificence; the 
deep mines of the earth, numberless mountain gorges and 
gulches and the diamond-yielding sands of many a river had 
been explored and searched with a more than wonted care ; 
the forests had relinquished their tallest and stateliest timber; 
the fields of a thousand husbandmen in remote and diverse 
lands had been tilled with unusual labor and skill that they 
might produce a better quality of fiber grain and fruit; lesser 
and greater workshops had hummed and roared and thundered 
for the construction of unheard-of implements and machinery: 
while in the more quiet factory, private abode and retired 
study, ten thousand hands directed by an inspiration they had 
never known before, noiselessly wrought the countless articles 
of use and luxury which so wonderfully characterize this 
most wonderful age; and now, at last, proud ships, freighted 
with cargoes diverse and marvellous, from every land on all 
the continents and from strange and distant isles, had come 
over the seas, and the products of the genius and labor of all 
peoples, from the frozen North to the sunny South, and from 
the old and worn-out East to the new and mighty West, lay side 
by side, each challenging the world’s admiration and demand¬ 
ing impartial comparison with every other ! What wonder that 
the representatives of all nations and kindreds were gathered 
to witness the grand spectacle, while the whole world waited 
for the appointed hour, that they might, in full accord, rejoice 
together over these new triumphs of the Industry of Man ! 
The procession, which comprised a great number of high 
dignitaries—^princes, dukes, nobles, archbishops, ministers of 
state, lord^ mayors, foreign ministers, ambassadors and com¬ 
missioners, with many noble and royal ladies in gay and jewel¬ 
led attire, as, wdth a flourish of trumpets, it entered the Palace 
and with measured tread moved along the crimson-carpeted 
aisles of the grand avenue and nave, made a splendid and most 
imposing pageant. ^ 
The Queen being anxious to mark her interest in an under- 
