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 as a dream. The
actual result is that it proved indispensably necessary to provide an
additional building of very nearly equal dimensions, or three hundred
and forty-nine by a hundred and eighty-six feet, to receive the
contributions offered; and this after the promulgation of a strict
requirement that "all works of art must be of a high order of merit."
Half the space in the extension had been claimed by Great Britain,
Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Italy before ground was broken
for its foundation; and recent demands at home have rendered necessary
a further projection of the wings, with the effect of giving to the
building the form of a Greek cross.

This building is on the rear, or north side, of Memorial Hall, and is
the first portion of the fine-art department that meets the eye of
one coming from Horticultural Hall. It is of comparatively temporary
character, being built of brick instead of the solid granite that
composes the pile in front of it. Its architectural pretensions are of
course inferior. It is the youngest of all the exposition buildings,
the present spring witnessing its commencement and completion. The
drying of such green walls in such manner as to render them safe for
valuable pictures has been compassed by the use of "asbestos" brick,
which is said to be fire- as well as water-proof. Failure in this