ountry is on the average more than
4,000 miles off.--I am confirmed in my view that the cavils at the
meagerness of our contribution are not well grounded.

III.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

LONDON, Thursday, May 6th, 1851.

"The World's Fair," as we Americans have been accustomed to call it, has
now been open five days, but is not yet in complete order, nor anything
like it. The sound of the saw and the hammer salutes the visiter from
every side, and I think not less than five hundred carpenters and other
artisans are busy in the building to-day. The week will probably close
before the fixtures will have all been put up and the articles duly
arranged for exhibition. As yet, a great many remain in their
transportation boxes, while others are covered with canvas, though many
more have been put in order within the last two days. Through the great
center aisle very little remains unaccomplished; but on the sides, in
the galleries, and in the department of British Machinery, there is yet
work to do which another week will hardly see concluded. Meantime, the
throng of visiters is immense, though the unexampled extent of the
People's Palace prevents any crush or inconvenience. I think there
cannot have been less than Ten Thousand visiters in the building to-day.

Of course, any attempt to specify, or to set forth the merits or defects
of particular articles, must here be futile. Such a universe of
materials, inventions and fabrics defies that mode of treatment. But I
will endeavor to give some general idea of the Exhibition.

If you enter the building at the East, you are in the midst of the
American contributions, to which a great space has been allotted, which
they meagerly fill. Passing westward down the aisle, our next neighbor
is Russia, who had not an eighth of our space allotted to her, and has
filled that little far less thoroughly and creditably than we have. It
is said that the greater part of the Russian articles intended for the
Fair are yet ice-bound in the Baltic. France, Austria, Switzerland,
Prussia and other German States succeed her; the French contributions
being equal (I think) in value, if not in extent and variety, to those
of all the rest of the Continent. Bohemia has sent some admirable
Glassware; Austria a suit of apartments thoroughly and sumptuously
furnished, which wins much regard and some admiration. There is of
course a great array of tasteful design and exquisite workmanship from