INTRODUCTION.

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portions of the building being then assigned to Foreign countries and to groups ofexhibitors, a considerable latitude was permitted to them in arranging the otherpassages; at the same time, as the erection of the second gallery brought the wholebuilding into a system of courts, spaces in the form of courts were allotted toForeign countries, home districts, and classes of objects, and every one wasencouraged to preserve them as much as possible. Thus on the British side, atthe north there are the several machinery courts—the carriage court—the mineralcourt—the paper court—the miscellaneous court—the East India court; whilstat the south, there are three courts respectively for printed fabrics, for flax andwoollen, and mixed fabrics :—furniture has its court, so have the manufactures ofBirmingham and Sheffield—agricultural implements have an extensive court, andthere are courts for medkeval furniture, for sculpture, for Canada and colonies, andthe East Indies; on the east or Foreign side, almost every country has one or morecourts,—France having eight, Austria six, &c.

Spaces of the requisite dimensions having been set apart to receive the pro-ductions of the Colonies and each Foreign country, the charge of these depart-ments, as well as the arrangement of the productions, was handed over to eachcommissioner or agent representing such Colonies or Foreign country.

On account of the vast magnitude of the building, of the shortness of time Arrangement ofavailable for arrangement after the completion of the building, which as theevent proved was hardly a week before the opening, and of the delay insending the goods, it was foreseen by the Executive Committee that it wouldbe necessary to arrange the Foreign productions geographically and thewhole of the British Exhibition, not by means of the articles themselves,but of descriptions of them, and to map out the whole space before thearticles themselves arrived. Not a few of these descriptions were in thefirst instance most vague; the exhibitor desiring to reveal as little as possibleof the specific character of his articles. Many exhibitors demanded space for“fabrics,” without specifying whether they were even woven or plastic. Othersreturned “ woven fabrics,” leaving it doubtful whether they were made of cotton,wool, or flax; each forming a separate class. The demands for space, merely for“inventions” and “machines,” were numerous. Hence, there have crept insome errors in arrangement which would have been avoided had the descriptionbeen more precise. Another source of difficulty has been the miscalculations ofthe amount of space which exhibitors really wanted. So frequently was themeaning of the term “ superficial ” and “ square ” feet misunderstood; so oftenwere the expressions “horizontal” and “vertical” space disregarded or con-founded, that in planning the arrangement of the Exhibition the difficulties ofthe Executive Committee have been great, and mistakes inevitable. One instancewill afford a sufficient illustration. An important manufacturing town demanded9,000 feet of wall or vertical space for the exhibition of its shawls, but when thedemand came to be investigated, it was found to mean a demand for 900 feet offrontage on the wall, 10 feet high, and 3 feet deep—practically a demand for27,000 superficial feet—to be arranged in such a way as would occupy half thelength of the whole Exhibition ! This demand of 27,000, was eventually com-pressed within 1,800 superficial feet of horizontal space, and submitted to, it mustbe admitted, with good-natured forbearance. Indeed, it may be said, that whilstalmost every exhibitor desired some kind of special arrangement, convenient tohimself, but inconvenient to everybody else, almost every one submitted to a