The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

THE INTERIOR. NOTE.--The following Guide conducts the visitor up the Colonnade from the Railway Station, through the South Wing into the building. Passing through the nearest section of the Natural History Illustrations, he proceeds direct to the front of the _Screen of the Kings and Queens of England_, from whence he walks up the Nave to the _Great Central Transept_, and then commences the series of _Fine Arts Courts_ with the _Egyptian Court_, continuing it with the _Greek Court_, the _Roman Court_, and, through the division for the Tropical End, the _Alhambra Court_, and the _Assyrian Court_. Then crossing this end of the building, he continues the series of Courts on the other side with the _Byzantine Court_, the _German Mediæval Court_, the _English Mediæval Court_, the _French and Italian Mediæval Court_, the _Renaissance Court_, the _Elizabethan Court_, the _Italian Court_, and the _Italian Vestibule_. The _Court of Monuments of Art_ is next, from which the visitor crosses the Central Transept to the west, and explores the _Stationery Court_ and the adjacent departments, then the _Birmingham Court_, the _Sheffield Court_, and the _Pompeian House_, from which he crosses the South Transept, and enters the _Natural History Department_, having inspected which, he returns up the building on the other side, through the _Foreign Glass Manufactures Court_, the _British Porcelain Manufactures Court_, the _Ceramic Court_, and the _Court of Fancy Manufactures_. Returning then to the Screen of the Kings and Queens of England, the visitor examines the collections of the _Nave_, the _South Transept_, the _Great Central Transept_, the _North Transept_, and the _Tropical End of the Building_. The _Botany of the Palace_ is then described. The _Main and Upper Galleries_, in which will be found the _Picture Gallery_, the _Naval Museum_, the _Engineering Models_, the _Indian Court_, the _Industrial Museum and Technological Collection_, and the _Industrial Exhibition_ (described in the Exhibitors’ Descriptive Catalogue, page 175), should be next visited; and, after them, the _Agricultural Machinery_, and the _Machinery in Motion_, which are exhibited in the basement story next the Gardens: the basement is reached by descending the stairs from either of the Transepts. THE CRYSTAL PALACE. THE ENTRANCE. The Crystal Palace Railway from London Bridge, and the West End Railway from Pimlico, unite at the Station, in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. The Station is connected with the South Wing of the building by a glass-covered colonnade, along which is planted a brilliant array of flowering plants, whilst luxuriant creeping plants adorn the wall. The Fine Art Courts commence with the Egyptian Court, at the Central Transept, from whence the sequence is continued round the northern portion of the Nave. The Central Transept then will be the proper starting-point. When the weather is fine, the visitor may cross the gardens from the Railway Station direct to the central entrance on the upper terrace. We assume that he proceeds by the more usual way of the Colonnade, through the South Wing, until he attains the floor of the main building. He then passes through the Natural History illustrations which are nearest, and which he will examine hereafter; and, keeping to this, the south end of the Palace, proceeds towards the centre of the Nave, taking his stand opposite the Screen of the Kings and Queens of England, which bounds the long Nave at this end. From this point an unrivalled general view is obtained of the interior of the building. In the foreground is the Crystal Fountain, which adorned the Palace in Hyde Park, but here elevated in its proportions and improved. It is surrounded by a sheet of water, at each end of which float the gigantic leaves of the _Victoria Regia_, the intermediate space being occupied by various aquatic plants,--the _Nymphæa Devoniensis_, the _Nymphæa cærulea_, the _Nymphæa dentata_, and the _Nelumbium speciosum_, or sacred bean of the Pythagoreans, being conspicuous, with many others, beautiful, rare, or curious. The basin is also encircled with rich flowers. On either side of the Nave the plants of almost every clime wave their foliage, forming a mass of cool, pleasant colour, admirably harmonising with the surrounding tints, and also acting as a most effective background to relieve the white statues, which are picturesquely grouped along the Nave; at the back of these are the façades of the various Industrial and Fine Art Courts, whose bright colouring gives additional brilliancy to the interior, whilst the aërial blue tint of the arched roof above considerably increases the effect of the whole composition, having the effect of an opal vault. Towards evening the interior of the Palace appears like a vocal grove, the visitor hearing with delight the beautiful note of the nightingale, together with that of blackbirds, thrushes, wrens, and robin-redbreasts, which build and make a perpetual home of this magnificent covered garden. [Illustration: VIEW OF PALACE FROM SECOND TERRACE.] Let the visitor now proceed up the building until he arrives at the Central Transept, at which point he will be enabled to judge of the vastness of the hall in the midst of which he stands, and of the whole structure of which the transept forms so noble and conspicuous a part.