For the expression of its purpose, with all the solidity and grace consistent with that, the Moresque structure before us is not excelled by any within the grounds.  The curved roofs of the forcing-houses would have the effect upon the eye of weakening the base, but that, being of glass and showing the greenery within, their object explains itself at once, and we realize the strong wall rising behind them and supporting the lofty range of iron arches and fretwork that springs seventy-two feet to the central lantern.  The design of the side portals and corner towers may be thought somewhat feeble.  They and the base in its whole circuit might with advantage have been a little more emphasized by masonry.  The porticoes or narrow verandahs above them on the second story are in fine taste.  The eruption of flag-poles is, of course, a transient disease, peculiar to the season.  They have no abiding-place on a permanent structure like this, and will disappear with the exposition.

Entering from the side by a neat flight of steps in dark marble, we find ourselves in a gayly-tiled vestibule thirty feet square, between forcing-houses each a hundred by thirty feet.  Advancing, we enter the great conservatory, two hundred and thirty by eighty feet, and fifty-five high, much the largest in this country, and but a trifle inferior in height to the palm-houses of Chatsworth and Kew.  A gallery twenty feet from the floor will carry us up among the dates and cocoanuts that are to be.  The decorations of this hall are in keeping with the external design.  The woodwork looks out of place amid so much of harder material; but there is not much of it.

Outside promenades, four in number and each a hundred feet long, lead along the roofs of the forcing-houses, and contribute to the portfolio of lovely views that enriches the Park.  Other prospects are offered by the upper floors of the east and west fronts; the aerial terrace embracing in all seventeen thousand square feet.  The extreme dimensions of the building are three hundred and eighty by one hundred and ninety-three feet.  Restaurants, reception-rooms and offices occupy the two ends.  The contractor who has performed his work so satisfactorily is Mr. John Rice.

A few years hence this winter-garden will, with one exception to which we next proceed, be the main attraction at the Park.  It will by that time be effectively supplemented by thirty-five surrounding acres of out-door horticulture, to which the soil of decomposed gneiss is well suited.

Passing from the bloom of Nature, we complete our circuit with that which springs from the pencil, the chisel and the burin.  Here we alight upon another instance of inadequate calculation.  That the art-section of the exposition would fill a building three hundred and sixty-five by two hundred and ten feet, affording eighty-nine thousand square feet of wall-surface for pictures, must, when first proposed, have struck the most imaginative of the projectors