The Fate Of The Exhibition Building.

grow into a national institution , then will it be the height of folly , the most astounding example of exti-avagence the world has seen for many days , not to purchase the building at so comparatively trifling an outlay , aud thereby , to compel the public to expend every ten years half a million of money . It is true that in certain cliques every effort is made to throw discredit on exhibitions in general , and that the errors of the commissioners have contributed to do so to some sliht extentuntil it is stated

g , , with pretentions to speak authoritatively , that we have seem the last International Exhibition , in London . A most unbecoming use is made of the late Prince Consort ' s inflsence on the public mind by asserting that he was Opposed to periodical exhibitions , even to the present one . Of the truth of this assertion none can decide , except the few who were admitted to the confidence of His 1 ' oyal Highness , but we may be permitted to doubt it in

the face of the support he gave to the scheme by presiding over a public meeting at the Society of Arts , and of the importance of his subscription to the guarantee fund . Another pretended argument against future exhibitions is that manufacturers think them expensive , and the result not commensm-ably profitable . Upon the question of profits , the individual manufacturer alone can speak , and even in so commercial a matter he is not always to be implicity believed . The

public will be curious to hear the name of anyone whose experience of this year has decided him to abstain hereafter . Nearly everything exhibited that was for sale has been advantageously disposed of , and immense quantities have been solfl from samples . Minton , Copeland , and host of manufacturers have done a mcst profitable trade . It has been even better with foreigners , and to such an extent that the middle -men , commission agents , talk of refusing to deal with manufacturers who exhibit and sell .

In a matter of this kind we are bound to have recourse to the experience of the past to enable us to forecast the future . We find that neither the expenses of 1851 , nor for the Paris Exposition of 1855 , operated to deter people from exhibiting on the present occasion . Producers of works of industry were never more anxious to exhibit their wares to the public . The fact hat there were applications for tenfold the amount of space available for allotment is sufficient evidence of tbe falsehold of

the allegation . So long as there are exhibitions tnere will be no lack of exhibitors . Great as is the deference we are all anxious to pay to the opinions of the late Prince Consort , we are not prepared to accept them as infallible and absolutely "binding upon us . If an international exhibition was so serviceable ten years ago by showing us our shortcomings , and indicating their remedy , it will be equally serviceable ten years hence to establish the relative industrial positions of ourselves

and our rivals . They are fast treading on our heels , and will not leave undisputed our position in the world ' s markets . Already Dollf ' us , Meig , & Co . send their printed cottons here from Ivlullbausen , and fairly compete in the London market with Lancashire cotton-printers . Berry sends its soft iron to Birmingham , and Prussia supplies Sheffield with steel . Oui manufacturing superiority is no longer so great or so crushing as it wasfor since 1815 we have sent mechanics to almost every part

, of Europe , and have instructed foreigners to compete with us . If we would maintain the lead , slight though it may be , in can only be by continuous attention to progress everywhere , and there are no means which admit of this being done so easily and so efficiently as international exhibitions . A last objection is that decennial exhibitions leave too short an interval for study , preparation , and progress . In the history of the world , ten

years arc indeed a short period ; but in the history of industry , it is an epoch embracing the birth and practical realisation of inventions . In the last decade we have witnessed the discoverv of coal-tar dyes , the extensive substitution of jute for hemp , the establishment of submarine electro-telegraphy , the introduction of rifled artillery , the development of photography , the discovery of the new metal aluminium the construction of armoured shi

, ps of war , and of that huge leviathan the Great Eastern , the elucidation of the system of great circle sailing—each of which may be said to have effected a sensation in the branch of industry to which it belonged . If tbe next decade he signalised by improvements as numerous and as important as those which have illustrated the one just ended , the next -International Exhibition here will be no less instructive and useful than its predecessors

. Seeing these things , we may fairly conclude that we shall have International Exhibitions hereafter , and in that case it will be an immense economy to secure the present building . If advantage be taken of the present opportunity , which is a golden one , to acquire possession of the edifice , the next exhibi-

The Fate Of The Exhibition Building.

tion will he housed for £ 130 . 000 , and all the difference between that amount and the total receipts , after deducting current expenditure , will be so much clear profit , and be the nest-egg , at least a quarter of a million sterling , of a fund to defray the cost of future exhibitions , or to be applied to develope the progress of industrial arts . Whatever may be said of the demerits of Captain Fowkes' design , it is quite as good as that afteiwhich the Paris Palais de I'lndustrie was built , though the

difference between the materials—brick here and stone across the Channel—tells vastly with the ignorant who do not know that the merits of an architectural design do not consist in the qualit y of materials , but iu their combination of groupings in masses to produce an architectural picture by the play of light and shade . Now , a picture may be produced in brick as well as in stone . The Palais de I'lndustrie is finished , and has received a due amount of exterior surface decoration . At South Kensington

the structure is unfinished . The exterior is devoid of ornament , and is disfigured to meet the exigencies of the Exhibition . But when the outside comes to be finished up in all tiie details , its . appearance will be very different from what it now is . An attempt is to be made to improve the exterior by the introduction of mosaics . We have reason to believe the result will not be satisfactory . Pictures outside buildings do not please , but rather jar with our notions . The large enamel paintings on lava , by M . Jolivet , that covered the facade of St . Vincent de Paul , have been removed : for in northern climates , polyehromy must bo

usea very sparing in exteriors . To fill all the oays with mosaics would not remedy the defects of the design ; but if they alternated with bassi-rc-iievi and statues—if sculpture were relied on to give animation , variety , and emphasis to the facades—if the domes were raised and the tambours increased in height—and if the whole of the details were carefully finished—we should pro bably have a building as fair as could be obtained from the profession in a piib'ie competition .

The great question still remains , then—is the building to be retained ? or , in other words , where is the money to come from . The first course that , will naturally suggest itself wcuid bo the employment of the surplus from the Exhibition of ' 51 . There can be no more legitimate application of tbe profits of one exhibition than to compensate the deficiences of another , and provide a permanent home for future exhibitions ; and the price might be reimbursed to the ' 51 Exhibition Commissioners out

of the first receipts of the next . Something , too , would be earned in the interval . Government has to provide for the Royal Academy , and might rent some portion of the South Kensington Picture Gallery for that purpose , so as to save immediate outlay by that means on Wilkin's structure , and bo enabled to wait more prosperous times for the re-building of a National Gallery . Many temporary exhibitions and entertainments would gladly rent parts of the building , so that enough money could be earned to keep the structure in repair , and to pay a fair rate of interest on the sum advanced to complete the purchase . —Building l ^ ews .

The Alps In The Glacial Era.

THE ALPS IN THE GLACIAL ERA .

Professor Tyndall ' s reflections on the conformation of the Alps have been embodied , since his visit , in a communication by hira to the Philosophical Magazine ; and , as the paper is one of very general interest , especially hi its bearings on the still obscure subject of the era of ice and drift , of which , and of its human denizens and their avchieological remains , every one has been hearing so much of late ; we shall condense the professor ' s views into a brief paragraph or two .

It is perfectly certain , he conceives , that all this mountain region was held by ice , enormous as to mass , and in incessant motion . That such an agent was competent to plough out tho Alpine valleys caunot , he thinks , be doubted . That the glaciers have been the real excavators seems to him far more probable than the supposition that these glaciers merely filled valleys previously formed by water . The glacier , he considers , is

essentially self-destructive . The more deeply it ploughs the surface of the earth the more must it retreat . Let the present Alpine valleys be filled to the level of the adjacent ridges , and vast glaciers , he remarks , would again start into existence ; but every one of these valleys is a kind of furnace which sends draug hts of hot air up to the heights , and thus effectually prevents the formation of iee . Thus ; given the uplifted ; land , and we have a glacial epoch . Let the ice work down the ! earth : every foot it sinks neoessi-