20 DECEMBER 1851, Page 10

THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

The designs of Sir Joseph Paxton for a second "Great Exhibition Build- ing "—required in New York by the emulative Americans—have been submitted to private view this week, at the office in Clarges Street. Iron and glass are, of course, as in the Hyde Park edifice, the chief materials ; but wood is more extensively used, and enters more largely into the de- sign as a constructive feature. The building, which would be about 600 feet in length by from 150 to 200 in width, consists of a nave and two aisles, with galleries ; the supporting pillars, light and elegant in as-

pect, are planted in couples ; and the flooring of the galleries is left visible from below by the retreat of their supports. Exter- nally, the design is, as it were, the transept of our own building converted into the main structure, flanked by the projecting basement- story ; the plan admitting of reduplication as the necessities of the case may be found to demand. A kind of compromise has been effeeted be- tween the forms of its more immediate prototype and of the Kew pine- house. The skeleton of the building is more peaked and angular than in the formes, and the pure arch of our tranaept is replaced by a curved gable form in the central vaulting. Some abatement too of airiness and of the shifting play of light must be expected ; as the roofing is of slate, in provision against the ehances of an American snow-storm. Sir Joseph's design will reach the directors of the exhibition, we un- derstand, at a comparatively late period, various tenders having already been sent in : but it is surrounded by a prestige which, independently of its own merit, cannot but go far towards insuring its adoption.