feet, the grand and petit juries of the tribunal of industry and taste
have abundant elbow--room for deliberation and discussion. The same
enlightened policy which aimed at securing the utmost independence and
the highest qualifications of knowledge and intelligence in the two
hundred men who determine the awards, recognized also the advantage
of providing for their convenience. Their sessions here can be neither
cramped nor disturbed. So far as foresight can go, there is nothing
to prevent their deciding quietly, comfortably and soundly, after mute
argument from the vast array of objects submitted to their verdict, on
the merits of each. The main hall of this building, or high court as
it may be termed, is sixty by eighty feet, and forty-three feet high.
In the rear of it is a smaller hall. A number of other chambers
and committee-rooms are appropriated to the different branches as
classified. Accommodation is afforded, besides, to purposes of a less
arid nature--fêtes, receptions, conventions, international congresses
and the like. This cosmopolitan forum might fitly have been modeled
after

the tower that builders vain,
Presumptuous, piled on Shinar's plain.

Bricks from Birs Nimroud would have been a good material for the
walks. Perhaps, order being the great end, anything savoring of
confusion was thought out of place.

[Illustration: JUDGES' PAVILION.]

Fire is an invader of peace and property, defence against whose
destructive forays is one of the first and most constant cares of
American cities, old and new, great and small. Before the foundations