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OFFICIAL ILLUSTRAl'ED CATALOGUE ADVERTISER

"iving valuable statistical details as to tlio state of tliis branch of industry in various countries. 4. A historyof the invention and manufacture of playing cards ; besides several shorter articles on message cards, drawingboards, envelopes, and fancy stationery, the whole concluding with a list of the awards under this class. Thereis necessarily much variety in the general treatment of the subjects brought under notice ; but so tar as we liavobeen able to examine into the contents of so bulky a volume, wo have found them handled with very greatability. Altogether, wo regard it as a very valuable repertory of facts in art and science, and a worthy mementoof the great undertaking whose contents it so fully and elaborately describes.”— Doncaster Chronicle.

“ To attempt any description of such a work, purporting to convey to our readers the most remote conceptionof its contents would be a manifest absurdity, and would serve only to occupy our time in the useless endeavourto perpetrate an impossibility. Of its execution, whether we refer to the care and attention bestowed in thocompilation, or to the typographical excellence by which tho publishers have displayed their sense of the im-portance of tho task committed to them, we cannot speak too favourably. Enumerating in tho proper classevery individual whoso productions possessed suflioiont of merit or originality to entitle them to the most triflingnotice at the hands of the Commission, it superadds such descriptions of the articles themselves as to constitutea cycloprcdia invaluable for general reference, and to afford to it a great degree of merit apart and abstractedfrom any connection with its more immediate object. In many instances, the descriptions not only of thomechanism or construction of prominent articles of utility or curiosity, hut oven of their adaptation to thopurposes to which they are devoted, constitute perfect practical essays ; the more valuable from being placed injuxtaposition with other means for accomplishing similar ends, and the comparative advantages of each carefullybrought out.”— Poole and South- Western Herald.

“ Everything connected with the Great Exhibition has been done well ; and this elaborate work, whichcompletes the labours of the lloyal Commission, is fully entitled to share in the general praise. It completesthe history of the Exhibition, and contains a mass of scientific and general knowledge such as wo may seek foriu vain in any other volume. It contains nearly one thousand pages, royal octavo, printed closely, but clearly,in double columns ; and this immense quantity of matter is devoted to a minute description of every article inthe Exhibition submitted for the inspection of tho several juries. Such a Catalogue was never before publishedin England, and it forms a comploto history of the contents of tho Crystal Palace.”— The Atlas.

“ We have received an early copy of this careful and elaborate volume, which hears on its face a full reasonfor the fact, that its distribution among the exhibitors cannot be effected till the month of August. It consistsof 8G(i closely-printed pages, with numerous illustrative wood-cuts of the highest finish, and several brilliantcoloured specimens of designs of surpassing beauty. 'The Index alone, a work which no printing-office of timesby-past could have produced in tho period now occupied, forms 100 pages of double-column printing. In aword, such a mass of labour, such a monument of industry, such an amount of information, as these thirtyReports embraco, is of itself a monument of enduring honour to the energy and talent, the advanced civilisa-tion, and tho cultivation of the beautiful and useful, as England alono, oven in tho 1‘Jth century, could placebefore the world.”— Morning Advertiser.

“ We have received this copy of a worthy record of the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations.It is reprinted in a size more convenient than that in which it was originally published. This work will givesome notion of the time and labour of tho Juries in discharging their important duty. The number of exhi-bitors was about 17,000, but of these many, who were only reckoned once in the Catalogue, contributed a largovariety of objects, and came within the province of more than one jury; while in other cases towns, and evenwhole countries, were counted as single exhibitors, although they presented for examination every kind ofmanufacture and raw produce which their ingenuity and natural resources could furnish. Tho task of thoJuries, in the aggregate, involved the consideration and judgment of upwards of a million of articles—tho diffi-culties attending it being not a little increased bv the want of uniform system of classification of the subjects insome of tho foreign divisions, and by unavoidable imperfection in the Catalogue. As a work of reference, thoabove Report will be of great value.”— Plymouth and Devonport Journal.

“Our readers will remember that the Great Exhibition was divided into thirty classes of distinct branches ofindustry, over which tho best Juries that the world could furnish were appointed, in order that the palm ofexcellency might ho given to the most meritorious exhibitors in each class ; and in order, also, that they mightmake an official report of each branch of industry committed to their superintendence. We have now before usa proof copy of the “ Reports of tho Juries,” furnished to us by the members of the Royal Commission, whothroughout have been specially careful to give to the local as well as the metropolitan press every informationconnected with the rise, progress, and results of the Exhibition. It is hardly possible to overrate the value ofthis massive volume. When it is considered that the task of the Juries involved the consideration and judg-ment of at least a million articles, which consisted of the choicest industrial specimens that tho world couldfurnish, it will readily be seen that tho duties of those persons were of tho most onerous kind ; and when it isfurther considered that tho Reports before us contains the official Reports of these Juries—a list of the articlesfor which medals were granted, or which were commended, together with, in a vast number of instances, a detailof their mode of manufacture, peculiar properties, Ac., the reader will at once see that the volume becomes asplendid record of the industrial pursuits of the world. Every branch of art, science, and industry is noticed inthe order in which articles referring to them were exhibited, and the reader, by means of a copious Index, canreadily turn to any classification, and ascertain the information he desires. We need not add another wordregarding a work which gives a detail of the choicest specimens of human skill which graced the temple ofindustry.”— Ipswich Express.

LONDON:

SPICE LI BROTHERS, Wholesale Stationers; Wm. CLOWES and SONS, Printers;

CONTRACTORS TO Till! UOYAI. COMMISSION,

TUDOR STREET, FEW RRIlKiE STREET, ULACKKRIARS.

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