Various - Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II.

While Mr. Paxton was planning an abode for this Brobdignagian lily, the Building Committee of the Exhibition were poring wearily over the 240 plans lying upon their table. They had rejected the 180 worthless ones, and from the remainder had concocted, as we have said, with much cogitation and little satisfaction, their own design. Such as it was, however, it was determined that it should be executed – if possible.

This brings us down to the middle, or to be precise, to the 18th of June, on which day Mr. Paxton was sitting as chairman on a railway committee. He had previously made himself acquainted with the case laid before them, and was not therefore under the necessity of now devoting his attention to it. He took advantage of this leisure moment to work out a design for the Exhibition Building, which he had conceived some days previously. In ten days thereafter elevations, sections, working plans and specifications, were completed from this draft, and the whole was submitted to the inspection of competent and influential persons, by whom it was unanimously announced to be practicable, and the only practicable scheme presented.

This design was then laid before the contractors, Messrs. Fox and Henderson, who at once determined to submit a tender for the construction of a building in accordance with it. In a single week, they had calculated the amount and cost of every pound of iron, every pane of glass, every foot of wood, and every hour of labor which would be required, and were prepared with a tender and specifications for the construction of the edifice. But here arose a difficulty. The committee had advertised only for proposals for carrying out their own design; but, fortunately, they had invited the suggestion on the part of contractors, of any improvements upon it; and so Mr. Paxton's plan was presented simply as an "improvement" upon that of the committee, with which it had not a single feature in common. This, with certain modifications, was adopted, and the result is the Crystal Palace – itself the greatest wonder which the Exhibition will present – the exterior of which is represented in our accompanying Illustration.

The building consists of three series of elevations of the respective heights of 64, 44, and 24 feet, intersected at the centre by a transept of 72 feet in width, having a semicircular roof rising to the height of 108 feet in the centre. It extends in length 1851 feet from north to south, more than one-third of a mile, with a breadth of 456 feet upon the ground; covering 18 superficial acres, nearly double the extent of our own Washington-square; and exceeding by more than one half the dimensions of the Park or the Battery. The whole rests upon cast-iron pillars, united by bolts and nuts, fixed to flanges turned perfectly true, so that if the socket be placed level, the columns and connecting-pieces must stand upright; and, in point of fact, not a crooked line is discoverable in the combination of such an immense number of pieces. For the support of the columns, holes are dug in the ground, in which is placed a bed of concrete, and upon this rest iron sockets of from three to four feet in length, according to the level of the ground, to which the columns are firmly attached by bolts and nuts. At the top, each column is attached by a girder to its opposite column, both longitudinally and transversely, so that the whole eighteen acres of pillars is securely framed together.

The roofs, of which there are five, one to each of the elevations, are constructed on the "ridge and furrow" principle, and glazed with sheets of glass of 49 inches in length. The construction will be at once understood by imagining a series of parallel rows of the letter V (thus, \/\/\/), extending in uninterrupted lines the whole length of the building. The apex of each ridge is formed by a wooden sash-bar with notches upon each side for holding the laths in which are fitted the edges of the glass. The bottom bar, or rafter, is hollowed at the top so as to form a gutter to carry off the water, which passes through transverse gutters into the iron columns, which are hollow, thus serving as water-pipes; in the base of the columns horizontal pipes are inserted, which convey the accumulated water into the sewers. The exhalations, from so large an extent of surface, from the plants, and from the breath of the innumerable visitors, rising and condensed against the glass, would descend from a flat roof in the form of a perpetual mist, but it is found that from glass pitched at a particular angle the moisture does not fall, but glides down its surface. The bottom bars are therefore grooved on the inside, thus forming interior gutters, by which the moisture also finds its way down the interior of the columns, through the drainage pipes, into the sewers. These grooved rafters, of which the total length is 205 miles, are formed by machinery, at a single operation.

The lower tier of the building is boarded, the walls of the upper portion being composed, like the roof, of glass. Ventilation is provided for by the basement portion being walled with iron plates, placed at an angle of 45 degrees, known as luffer-boarding , which admits the air freely, while it excludes the rain. A similar provision is made at the top of each tier of the building. These are so constructed that they can be closed at pleasure. In order to subdue the intense light in a building having such an extent of glass surface, the whole roof and the south side will be covered with canvas, which will also preclude the possibility of injury from hail, as well as render the edifice much cooler.

In the construction of the building care has been taken to give to each part the stiffest and strongest form possible in a given quantity of material. The columns are hollow, and the girders which unite them are trellis-formed. The utmost weight which any girder will ever be likely to sustain is seven and a half tons; and not one is used until after having been tested to the extent of 15 tons; while the breaking weight is calculated at 30 tons. At first sight, there would seem to be danger that a building presenting so great a surface to the action of the wind, would be liable to be blown down. But from the manner in which the columns are framed together they can not be overthrown except by breaking them. Experiments show that in order to break the 1060 columns on the ground floor, a force of 6360 tons must be exerted, at a height of 24 feet. The greatest force of the wind ever known is computed at 22 pounds to the superficial foot; assuming a possible force of 28 pounds, and suppose a hurricane of that momentum to strike at once the whole side of the building, the total force would be less than 1500 tons – not one-fourth of the capacity of the building to sustain, independent of the bracings, which add materially to its strength. So that, if any reliance at all can be placed upon theoretical engineering, there can be no doubt as to the safety of the building.

Entering at the main east or west entrance, we find ourselves in a nave 64 feet in height, 72 in breadth, and extending without interruption the whole length of the building, one-third of a mile. Parallel with this, but interrupted by the transept in the centre, are a series of side aisles of 48 and 24 feet in breadth, with a height of 44 and 24 feet. Over the centre of the nave swells the semicircular roof of the transept, overarching the stately trees beneath – a Brobdignagian green-house with ancient elms instead of geraniums and rose-bushes. The whole area of the ground floor is 772,784 square feet; and that of the galleries 217,100; making in all within a fraction of one million square feet; to which may be added 500,000 feet of hanging-space, available for the display of the products of human heads and hands.

There are three refreshment rooms, one in the transept, and one near each end, around the trees which were left standing, where ices and pastry for the wealthy, and bread-and-butter and cheese for the poorer are to be furnished. No wine, spirits, or fermented liquors are to be sold; only tea, coffee, and unfermented drinks; pure water is to be furnished gratis to all comers by the lessees of the refreshment rooms.