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INTRODUCTION.

The formal deed of contract was not signed until tlie 31st October, althoughthe first iron column was fixed as early as the 26th September, 1850, thecontractors having thereby incurred, in their preparations, a liability of £50,000without any positive contract; in fact, great reciprocal confidence was manifestedby the contracting parties. Whatever objections were entertained originallyagainst the use of the site, gradually disappeared during the progress of thepresent building, and have become changed into positive approval and admira-tion, of the building itself and assent to the particular location of it. It should,however, be stated that a deed of covenant, to remove the building and giveup the site within seven months after the close of the Exhibition, namelybefore the 1st June, 1852, has been entered into between Her Majesty and theCommissioners. The deed was sealed on the 14th November, 1850.

At a very early period the Commissioners resolved that the whole space of anybuilding should be equally divided, and that one-half should be offered to Foreigncountries, and the other reserved to Great Britain and her colonies. And almostsimultaneously with this decision, before the plans of any building were settled,offers were made to foreign countries, assuring them more than 210,000 superfi-cial feet of net exhibiting space. But after the ground plan had been settled,and a calculation had been made of the amount of space unavailable for ex-hibition that was absorbed by the transept, the avenues, the courts and offices,&c., it became evident that the remaining space, after deducting what hadbeen assured to foreigners, was considerably less than the proportion due toGreat Britain and her colonies, and much below the demands and wants ofBritish exhibitors. It was at first suggested that an additional structureshould be erected to accommodate the agricultural implements, outside thebuildino-, but it was found that reasons both of economy and of managementgreatly preponderated in favour of building an additional gallery, which wasaccordingly done.

classification and J n orc [ er to settle the positive arrangement of articles m the building, it became

arrangement of ° < 0

articles. necessary to prepare a more precise system of classification than that furnished

by the classified list of admissible objects which the Commissioners had firstissued. The various systems which had been tried in the French Expositions proved that any system based upon an abstract philosophical theory was unsuit-able, and particularly so to the present Exhibition. It was also desirable that thesystem of classification should be made conducive to the readiest mode of consult-ing the vast collection, both by the general visitor and by the juries, who wouldhave to consider the merits of the whole. Dr. Playfair, to whom the Commis-sioners had confided the superintendence of the juries, suggested that whilstpreserving the original quadrupartite divisions of the Exhibition into RawProduce and Materials, Machinery, Manufactures, and Fine Arts, those sub-divisions which had been determined by commercial experience, should be adoptedas far as practicable, as the basis of the Classification. Eminent men of science, andmanufacturers in all branches, were invited to assist in determining each one theboundaries of his own special class of productions; .and it was resolved, for the pur-poses of the jury, to adopt thirty broad divisions, and to induce as far as practicable theapplication of this classification to all articles—both British and Foreign; always,however, ' bearing in mind the fundamental rule, that the productions of anexhibitor would not be separated, except in very extreme cases. Accordingly,with few exceptions, all articles have been divided into the following thirty classes..