ously 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 improvements 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 enormous 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 effectually. 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 this novel
and model garden-house, a hot war was raging
in London about the 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
sympathising 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
to bear the weight of the tremendous iron
dome designed to rest upon it; the
impossibility of the entire mass of mortar 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
projector'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 neighbours of Hyde
Park would be relieved of the incessant
"click—click " of bricklayers' trowels, the
maddening noise of the blacksmiths'
rivetting-hammers, 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