Land, in some instances, measuring fifteen inches across]. "The smooth water was covered with blossoms, and, as I rowed from one to the other, I always observed something new to admire.”

Such flowers Polyphemus must have gathered for Galatea's nosegay; but Sir Robert Schomburgk, not content with mere flowers, dug up whole plants; and sent first them, and afterwards seeds, to England, where the magnificent lily was named the "Victoria Regia." After some unsuccessful attempts, the task of forcing it to blossom in an artificial climate, was confined to Mr. Paxton, the celebrated horticulturist of the Duke of Devonshire's celebrated Chatsworth.

Mr. Paxton-a man of high scientific attainments-is not a mere academic savant. His Alma Mater is nature. When the Victoria Regia was to be flowered, Mr. Paxton determined to imitate Nature so closely as to make that innocent offspring of the Great Mother fancy itself back again in the broad waters and under the burning heats of British Guiana. He deceived the roots by imbedding them in a hillock of burned loam and peat; he deluded the great lubberly leaves by letting them float in a tank, to which he communicated, by means of a little wheel, the gentle ripple of their own tranquil river; and he coaxed the flower into bloom by manufacturing a Berbician climate in a tiny South America, under a glass case.

With that glass case our history properly commences. In imitation of a philosophic French Cook, who began a chapter on stewed apples with an essay on the Creation, we have thought it wise to start with the parentage and gestation, before proceeding to the birth and development of the Great Giant in Hyde Park; for by a curious apposition, the first parent of the most extensive building in

Europe was the largest known floral structure in the world. Although, co-relatively, they differ as widely as the popular disparity of St. Paul's and a China orange; yet the one proceeded from the other, as consequently as oaks grow from acorns.

Mr. Paxton had already effected many improvements in horticultural buildings; the workmanship of which has always been unnecessarily massive. With the conviction

that glass houses are not Egyptian tombs, built for darkness and eternity, he set about making them lighter than of old, both as regards actinism and architecture. He discarded as much as practicable all ponderous and opake materials. He pared away all clumsy sash-bars, whose broad shadows robbed plants of the sun's light and heat during the best parts of the day; he abolished dirty and leaking overlaps, by using large panes, and inserting them in wooden grooves, rendered water-tight by a sparing use of putty. Lastly, finding that into the ordinary sloping roof the sunbeams enter, at an indirect and unprofitable angle, Mr. Paxton invented a horizontal glazing composed of angular ridges, the glass presenting itself to the sun's rays so as to admit them to the plants in a straight line at almost any time of day; but especially early and late.

In a green-house constructed with some of these improvements, and acclimated as we have already explained, a Victoria Regia was planted on the tenth of August, 1849. So well had every thing been prepared for its reception, that it flourished as vigorously as if it had been restored to its native soil and climate. Its growth and development were astonishingly rapid; for on the ninth of November a flower was produced, a yard in circumference! In little more than a month after, the first seeds ripened, some of them were tilled, and on the sixteenth of February succeeding,

young plants made their appearance. Success, however, brought a fresh embarrassment. The extraordinary lily obeyed Nature's law of development with such unexpected rapidity, that it outgrew the dimensions of its home in little more than a month. It therefore set Mr. Paxton a problem to solve; the formula of which was something like this:-Given, an exotic growing in a green-house, at the rate of six hundred and forty-seven square inches of circumference per diem: required, in three months, a new house of dimensions proper for its maturity?

Mr. Paxton went to work; and, combining all his im provements in constructing green-houses, with his special inventions for maturing the Victoria Regia, he very soon produced the "Q. E. D.," in the shape of a novel and elegant conservatory, sixty feet long by forty broad. This building became the immediate precursor of the gigantic structure in Hyde Park,-why necessitates a short explanation.

Among the many desiderata required for every kind of habitation-whether it be designed for plants or princes, for a pine-house or a palace, for the Victoria Regia, or for the (normous glass case under which to collect the products of All Nations, the most imperative conditions, after stability, are, perfect facilities for drainage and for ventilation; another, though scarcely subordinate proviso, is economy. The man who can construct houses which shall repel external humidity, and allow of a constant and gentle change of atmosphere at any controllable temperature, and at the lowest cost consistent with durability, is, of course, the prince of builders. Now, in order to be economical, he must necessarily so manage, that each of his materials shall perform as many different functions as it is possible for it to perform effeetually. If he build walls which answer for

warmth and strength only, if he add gutters for drainage, and if he call in Dr. Reid for ventilation, he may, probably, build a good habitation, but it will certainly be a costly, perhaps a clumsy one; and will turn out a very long job. Mr. Paxton, when he set about the new Victoria Regia house-guided by previous study and experience, and forced into new expedients by the peculiarities of the extraordinary tenant he was building for-had become a better economist. The result is, as shown in his latest effort-the great Building-that his walls and foundations are not simply walls and foundations, but ventilators and drains as well. His roofs are not simply roofs; but, besides being the most extensive of known sky-lights are light, and heat adjusters. His sash-bars do not only hold the glass together, but are self-supporting, and his rafters form perfect drains for both sides of the glass,-for draining off internal, as well as external moisture, whilst the tops of the girders are conduits also. His floors are dust-traps, and aid in ventilation. Lastly, his whole building is, while in course of construction, its own scaffolding. Thus he saves time as well as money.

The Victoria Regia house, which combines most of the advantages above detailed, was finished in several weeks' less time, and cost considerably less money, than the slenderest old-fashioned conservatory that has ever been built.

While Mr. Paxton was busy with his novel and model garden-house, a hot war was raging in London about a site for the new building for exhibiting specimens of the Art and Industry of all nations in 1851. Mr. Paxton is a reader of the "Times," and perused with sympathizing interest its fiercely-urged objections against the invasion of Hyde Park by armies of excavators, bricklayers, blacksmiths, and timber-fellers. The picture daily drawn of the

tearing up of fashionable roads by the carting of more bricks and mortar (for, mark, a temporary edifice) than the eternal pyramids of Ghizeh consist of; the cutting down from one side of Rotten Row of its most cherished ornaments, the trees; the uncertainty of miles of brickwork being put together in time for sufficient consolidation te bear the weight of the tremendous iron dome designed tc rest upon it; the impossibility of the entire mass of mortal and plaster duly drying:-All this, though occasionally overdrawn and exaggerated, presented a black perspective. which the means and appliances of the Victoria Regia conservatory would, thought its architect, considerably lighten, or altogether obviate. Every new thunderbolt from the newspaper Tonans, strengthened this notion in the projec tor's mind. All that was wanted, was a great many great lily-houses joined together. A multiplication of hands and of materials could be readily commanded, and no structure could be raised so quickly and so cheaply. The promenaders and neighbors of Hyde Park would be relieved of the incessant "click-click" of bricklayers' trowels, the maddening noise of the blacksmiths' rivetinghammers, and have perfect immunity from the hourly transit of bricks and scaffold poles. The proposed edifice could be constructed at Birmingham, at Dudley, and at Thames Bank, "brought home" to Hyde Park ready-made, and put up like a bedstead. As to the trees: for a couple of hundred pounds Mr. Paxton would transplant them, and bring them back again at the end of the Industrial Fair without injuring a single twig. And here we may remark, in passing, that, according to Horace Walpole, Mr. Paxton is half a century before his time in his huge transplanting operations. In August, 1748, the Twickenham Prophet wrote to his Cousin Conway, as a piece of extra