Note 4 — PART I. PRELIMINARY AND INTRODUCTION.

We do not know any name more suitable to express the character of this iron and glass building than that which we have chosen. In Gothic architecture we have named one style “Early English,” and we think we may with equal propriety confer the title of “Modern English” upon the new order, which is essentially the creation of the nineteenth century, and which served to house one of the greatest national displays that England ever attempted—The Great Exhibition of 1851. The erection of the building both of 1851 and of 1854, it may be well to remark, is mainly due to the rapid advances made in this country in the manufactures of glass and iron, substances which with only moderate attention will defy the effects of time. The present structure is capable of enduring longer than the oldest marble or stone architectural monuments of antiquity. The iron, which forms its skeleton or framework, becomes, when painted, the most indestructible of materials, and the entire covering of glass may be renewed again and again without in any way interfering with the construction which it covers.