for the carriage of some of the large plants and trees which enrich the horticultural department, eight boats being required to transport from New York a thousand specimens of the Cuban flora sent by a single exhibitor, M. Lachaume of Havana. Those moisture-loving shrubs, the brilliant rhododendra collected by English nurserymen from our own Alleghanies and returned to us wonderfully improved by civilization, might have been expected also to affect the canal, but they chose, with British taste, the more rapid rail. They had, in fact, no time to lose, for their blooming season was close at hand, and their roots must needs hasten to test the juices of American soil. Japan's miniature garden of miniature plants, interesting far beyond the proportions of its dimensions, was perforce dependent on the same means of conveyance.

FAÇADE OF THE EGYPTIAN DIVISION, MAIN BUILDING.

The locomotive was summoned to the aid of foreign exhibitors on the Atlantic as on the Pacific side, though to a less striking extent, the largest steamships being able to lie within three miles of the exposition buildings. It stood ready on the wharves of the Delaware to welcome these stately guests from afar, indifferent whether they came in squadrons or alone. It received on one day, in this vestibule of the exposition, the Labrador from France and the Donati from Brazil. Dom Pedro's coffee, sugar and tobacco and the marbles and canvases of the Société des Beaux-Arts were whisked off in amicable companionship to their final destination. The solidarity of the nations is in some sort promoted by this shaking down together of their goods and chattels. It gives a truly international look to the exposition to see one of Vernet's battle-pieces or Meissonier's microscopic gems of color jostled by a package of hides from the Parana or a bale of India-rubber.

Yet more expressive was the medley upon the covered platforms for the reception of freight. Eleven of these, each one hundred and sixty by twenty-four feet, admitted of the unloading of fifty-five freight-cars at once. At this rate there was not left the least room for anxiety as to the ability of the Commission and its employés to dispose, so far as their responsibility was concerned, of everything presented for exhibition within a very few days. The movements of the custom-house officials, and the arrangements of goods after the passing of that ordeal, were less rapid, and there seemed some ground for anxiety when it was found that in the last days of March scarce a tenth of the catalogued exhibits were on the ground, and for the closing ten days of the period fixed for the receipt of goods an average of one car-load per minute of the working hours was the calculated draft on the resources of the unloading sheds. Home exhibitors, by reason of the very completeness of their facilities of transport, were the most dilatory. The United States held back until her guests were served, confident in the abundant efficiency of the preparations made for bringing the entertainers to their side. Better thus than that foreigners should have been behind time.

When the gates of the enclosure were at last shut upon the steam-horse, a broader and more congenial field of duty opened before him. From the rôle of dray-horse he passed to that of courser. Marvels from the ends of the earth he had, with many a pant and heave, forward pull and backward push, brought together and dumped in their allotted places. Now it became his task to bear the fiery cross over hill and dale and gather the clans, men, women and children. The London exhibition of 1851 had 6,170,000 visitors, and that of 1862 had 6,211,103. Paris in 1855 had 4,533,464, and in 1867, 10,200,000. Vienna's exhibition drew 7,254,867. The attendance at London on either occasion was barely double the number of her population. So it was with Paris at her first display, though she did much better subsequently. Vienna's was the greatest success of all, according to this test. The least of all, if we may take it into the list, was that of New York in 1853. Her people numbered about the same with the visitors to her Crystal Palace—600,000. Philadelphia's calculations went far beyond any of these figures, and she laid her plans accordingly.

Some trainbands from Northern and Southern cities might give their patriotic furor the bizarre form of a march across country, but the millions, if they came at all, must come by rail, and the problem was to multiply the facilities far beyond any previous experience, while reconciling the maximum of safety, comfort and speed with a reduction of fares. The arrangements are still to be tested, and are no doubt open to modification. On one point, however, and this an essential one, we apprehend no grounds of complaint. There will be no crowding. The train is practically endless, the word terminus being a misnomer for the circular system of tracks to which the station (six hundred and fifty by one hundred feet) at the main entrance of the grounds forms a tangent. The line of tourists is reeled off like their thread in the hands of Clotho, the iron shears that snip it at stated intervals being represented by the unmythical steam-engine. The same modern minister of the Fates has another shrine not far from the dome of Memorial Hall, where his acolytes are the officials of the Reading Railroad Company.

Care for the visitor's comfortable locomotion does not end with depositing him under the reception-verandah. The Commission did not forget that a pedestrian excursion over fifteen or twenty miles of aisles might sufficiently fatigue him without the additional trudge from hall to hall over a surface of four hundred acres under a sun which the century has certainly not deprived of any mentionable portion of its heat. Hence, the belt railway, three and a half miles long, with trains running by incessant schedule—a boon only to be justly appreciated by those who attended the European expositions or any one of them. His umbrella and goloshes pocketed in the form of a D.P.C. check, the visitor, more fortunate than Brummel or Bonaparte, cannot be stopped by the elements.

FAÇADE OF THE SWEDISH DIVISION, MAIN BUILDING.

We shall have amply disposed of the subject of transportation when we add that the neighborhood or city supply to the thirteen entrance-gates is provided for by steam-roads capable of carrying twenty-four thousand persons hourly, and tram-roads seating seven thousand, besides an irregular militia or voltigeur force of light wagons, small steamers and omnibuses equal to a demand of two or three thousand more in the same time. It was not deemed likely that Philadelphia would require conveyance for half of her population every day. Should that supposition prove erroneous, the excess can fall back upon the safe and inexpensive vehicle of 1776, 1851, 1867 and 1873—sole leather.

Let us return to our packing-cases, and see where they go. To watch the gradual dispersal of a congregation to their several places of abode is always interesting. Especially is it so when those places of retreat bear the names and fly the flags of the several nations of the globe. This stout cube of deal, triple-bound with iron, disappears under the asp and winged sphere of the Pharaohs. That other, big with rich velvets and broideries, seeks the tricolor of France. Yonder, a wealth of silks and lacquer