Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations or The Great Exhibition, an international exhibition, took place in Hyde Park, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century, it was a much anticipated event; the Great Exhibition was organized by Henry Cole and by Prince Albert, husband of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria. Famous people of the time attended, including Charles Darwin, Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist Royal Family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson and William Makepeace Thackeray; the Exposition des produits de l'industrie française organized in Paris, from 1798 to 1849 were precursors to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was organized by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Henry, George Wallis, Charles Dilke and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Commerce as a celebration of modern industrial technology and design.
It was arguably a response to the effective French Industrial Exposition of 1844: indeed, its prime motive was for Britain to make "clear to the world its role as industrial leader". Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, was an enthusiastic promoter of the self-financing exhibition. Queen Victoria and her family visited three times. Although the Great Exhibition was a platform on which countries from around the world could display their achievements, Britain sought to prove its own superiority; the British exhibits at the Great Exhibition "held the lead in every field where strength, durability and quality were concerned, whether in iron and steel, machinery or textiles." Britain sought to provide the world with the hope of a better future. Europe had just struggled through "two difficult decades of political and social upheaval," and now Britain hoped to show that technology its own, was the key to a better future. Sophie Forgan says of the Exhibition that "Large, piled-up ‘trophy’ exhibits in the central avenue revealed the organisers’ priorities.
Technology and moving machinery were popular working exhibits." She notes that visitors "could watch the entire process of cotton production from spinning to finished cloth. Scientific instruments were found in class X, included electric telegraphs, air pumps and barometers, as well as musical and surgical instruments."A special building, nicknamed The Crystal Palace, or "The Great Shalimar", was built to house the show. It was designed by Joseph Paxton with support from structural engineer Charles Fox, the committee overseeing its construction including Isambard Kingdom Brunel, went from its organisation to the grand opening in just nine months; the building was architecturally adventurous, drawing on Paxton's experience designing greenhouses for the sixth Duke of Devonshire. It took the form of a massive glass house, 1848 feet long by 454 feet wide and was constructed from cast iron-frame components and glass made exclusively in Birmingham and Smethwick. From the interior, the building's large size was emphasized with statues.
The Crystal Palace was an enormous success, considered an architectural marvel, but an engineering triumph that showed the importance of the Exhibition itself. The building was moved and re-erected in 1854 in enlarged form at Sydenham Hill in south London, an area, renamed Crystal Palace, it was destroyed by fire on 30 November 1936. Six million people—equivalent to a third of the entire population of Britain at the time—visited the Great Exhibition; the average daily attendance was 42,831 with a peak attendance of 109,915 on 7 October. The event made a surplus of £186,000, used to found the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, they were all built in the area to the south of the exhibition, nicknamed Albertopolis, alongside the Imperial Institute. The remaining surplus was used to set up an educational trust to provide grants and scholarships for industrial research; the Exhibition caused controversy. Some conservatives feared that the mass of visitors might become a revolutionary mob, whilst radicals such as Karl Marx saw the exhibition as an emblem of a capitalist fetishism of commodities.
King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, shortly before his death, wrote to Lord Strangford about it: The folly and absurdity of the Queen in allowing this trumpery must strike every sensible and well-thinking mind, I am astonished the ministers themselves do not insist on her at least going to Osborne during the Exhibition, as no human being can answer for what may occur on the occasion. The idea... must shock every well-meaning Englishman. But it seems. In modern times, the Great Exhibition is a symbol of the Victorian Age, its thick catalogue, illustrated with steel engravings, is a primary source for High Victorian design. A memorial to the exhibition, crowned with a statue of Prince Albert, is locate
Blotting paper
Blotting paper, sometimes called bibulous paper, is a absorbent type of paper or other material. It is used to absorb an excess of liquid substances from the surface of writing paper or objects. Blotting paper referred to as bibulous paper is used in microscopy to remove excess liquids from the slide before viewing. Blotting paper has been sold as a cosmetic to aid in the removal of skin oils and makeup. Blotting paper is made from different materials of varying thickness, etc. depending on the application. It is made of cotton and manufactured on special paper machines. Blotting paper is reputed to be first referred to in the English language in the 15th century but there is a tradition in Norfolk, England that it was invented by accident at Lyng Mill on the River Wensum, it is reported that a Berkshire paper mill worker failed to add sizing to a batch of paper, being produced. The batch was discarded. Subsequently, someone tried to write on a piece of this discarded "scrap" paper and found that it absorbed any ink applied, making it unusable for writing.
Its marked absorbency having been noted, led to its subsequently being produced and used as blotting paper, replacing sand, the material, used for absorbing superficial wet ink. In a time when most paper was produced from "rags", red/pink rags, from which it was difficult to remove all color and had been discarded, were now directed to the production of blotters, hence the characteristic pink color of blotters. A form of blotter paper known as watercolor paper is produced for its absorbent qualities, allowing much better absorption of water and pigments than standard art or drawing papers. Although categorized as separate from blotting paper, differences in the constituents and thickness of blotting paper and watercolor paper are subtle, making a distinction between the two is unnecessary as the production process is nearly identical. Blotting paper is used in chemical analyses as stationary phase in thin-layer chromatography. Blotting paper is used in pool/spa maintenance to measure pH balance.
Small squares of blotting paper attached to disposable plastic strips are impregnated with pH sensitive compounds extracted from lichens Roccella tinctoria. These strips are used to litmus strips, however filter paper is used for litmus strips to allow for the property of diffusion. Drugs active in microgram range, most notably LSD, are distributed on blotting paper. A liquid solution of the drug is applied to the blotting paper, perforated into individual doses and artfully decorated with what is known as blotter art. Vanity blotter is blotter art that hasn't been exposed to LSD and is sold as a collectible, although much of this art ends up in illegal distribution; the artwork is printed onto blotter paper and sometimes perforated into tiny squares or "tabs" which can be torn or cut apart. Most blotter art designs have grid lines as part of the design to either aid in perforation or to be left as a cutting grid. Blotter as a delivery method allows for easy dosing of potent substances and easy sublingual administration of drugs which has made it popular as a preparation for other potent drugs including 25I-NBOMe and alprazolam.
Plain white LSD blotter without artwork is referred to as WoW and is not perforated but rather gridded with a pen and sometimes laid on obtained watercolor paper. Blotting is necessary when using dip pens and when using fountain pens; this was first done by sprinkling pounce over the wet ink. When used to remove ink from writings, the writing may appear in reverse on the surface of the blotting paper, a phenomenon, used as a plot device in a number of detective stories, such as in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. Blotting papers are commonly used in cosmetics to absorb excess sebum oil from the face, they are popularly marketed and have been sold by numerous cosmetic brands worldwide such as Mac and Bobbi Brown, as well as UK high street store: Boots UK. Prices for blotting papers can range from as low as $3.00 per packet to as high as $30 or more. More affordable brands can be found by makers such as Clean and Clear and pharmacies such as Walgreens or CVS carry their own brands for a reduced price.
The papers are dyed, for wider market appeal, dusted with salicylic acid and minerals to prevent the formation of comedones and acne. However, there is a popular debate of whether blotting papers can help reduce acne by absorbing excess oil, or cause it; the quality of the blotting papers and the use of other ingredients such as mineral oils may be a determining factor
Atmospheric railway
An atmospheric railway uses differential air pressure to provide power for propulsion of a railway vehicle. A static power source can transmit motive power to the vehicle in this way, avoiding the necessity of carrying mobile power generating equipment; the air pressure, or partial vacuum can be conveyed to the vehicle in a continuous pipe, where the vehicle carries a piston running in the tube. Some form of re-sealable slot is required to enable the piston to be attached to the vehicle. Alternatively the entire vehicle may act as the piston in a large tube. Several variants of the principle were proposed in the early 19th century, a number of practical forms were implemented, but all were overcome with unforeseen disadvantages and discontinued within a few years. A modern proprietary system is in use for short-distance applications. Porto Alegre Metro airport connection is one of them. In the early days of railways, single vehicles or groups were propelled by human power, or by horses; as mechanical power came to be understood, locomotive engines were developed.
These had serious limitations, in particular being much heavier than the wagons in use, they broke the rails. Many engineers turned their attention to transmitting power from a static power source, a stationary engine, to a moving train; such an engine could be more robust and with more available space more powerful. The solution to transmitting the power, before the days of practical electricity, was the use of either a cable system or air pressure. In 1799, George Medhurst of London discussed the idea of moving goods pneumatically through cast iron pipes, in 1812, he proposed blowing passenger carriages through a tunnel. Medhurst proposed two alternative systems: either the vehicle itself was the piston, or the tube was small with a separate piston, he never patented his ideas and they were not taken further by him. In 1824, a man called Vallance built a short demonstration line. To slow the vehicle down, doors were opened at each end of the vehicle. Vallance's system was not adopted commercially.
In 1835, Henry Pinkus patented a system with a large square section tube with a low degree of vacuum, limiting leakage loss. He changed to a small-bore vacuum tube, he proposed to seal the slot that enabled the piston to connect with the vehicle with a continuous rope. He built a demonstration line alongside the Kensington Canal, issued a prospectus for his National Pneumatic Railway Association, he was unable to interest investors, his system failed when the rope stretched. However his concept, a small bore pipe with a resealable slot was the prototype for many successor systems. Jacob and Joseph Samuda were shipbuilders and engineers, owned the Southwark Ironworks. Samuel Clegg was a gas engineer and they worked in collaboration on their atmospheric system. About 1835, they read Medhurst's writings, developed a small bore vacuum pipe system. Clegg worked for sealing the slot in the pipe. In 1838, they took out a patent "for a new improvement in valves" and built a full-scale model at Southwark.
In 1840, Jacob Samuda and Clegg leased half a mile of railway line on the West London Railway at Wormholt Scrubs, where the railway had not yet been opened to the public. In that year Clegg left for Portugal. Samuda's system involved a continuous cast iron pipe laid between the rails of a railway track; the leading vehicle in a train was a piston carriage. It was held by a bracket system that passed through the slot, the actual piston was on a pole ahead of the point at which the bracket left the slot; the slot was sealed from the atmosphere by a continuous leather flap, opened in advance of the piston bracket and closed again behind it. A pumping station ahead of the train would pump air from the tube, air pressure behind the piston would push it forward; the Wormwood Scrubbs demonstration ran for two years. The traction pipe was of 9 inches diameter, a 16 hp stationary engine was used for power; the gradient on the line was a steady 1 in 115. In his treatise, described below, Samuda implies that the pipe would be used in one direction only, the fact that only one pumping station was erected suggests that trains were gravitated back to the lower end of the run after the atmospheric ascent, as was done on the Dalkey line.
Many of the runs were public. Samuda quotes the loads and degree of speed of some of the runs. There was enormous public interest in the ideas surrounding atmospheric railways, at the same time as Samuda was developing his scheme, other ideas were put forward; these included: Nickels and Keane.
Victoria amazonica
Victoria amazonica is a species of flowering plant, the largest of the Nymphaeaceae family of water lilies. It is the National flower of Guyana; the species has large leaves, up to 3 m in diameter, that float on the water's surface on a submerged stalk, 7–8 m in length. The species was once called Victoria regia after Queen Victoria. V. amazonica is native to the shallow waters of the Amazon River basin, such as oxbow lakes and bayous. It is depicted in the Guyanese coat of arms; the flowers are white the first night they become pink the second night. They are up to 40 cm in diameter, are pollinated by beetles; this process was described in detail by Sir Ghillean Jorge Arius. It is the largest waterlily in the world. A member of the genus Victoria placed in the Nymphaeaceae family or, sometimes, in the Euryalaceae; the first published description of the genus was by John Lindley in October 1837, based on specimens of this plant returned from British Guiana by Robert Schomburgk. Lindley named the genus after the newly ascended Queen Victoria, the species Victoria regia.
The spelling in Schomburgk's description in Athenaeum, published the month before, was given as Victoria Regina. Despite this spelling being adopted by the Botanical Society of London for their new emblem, Lindley's was the version used throughout the nineteenth century. An earlier account of the species, Euryale amazonica by Eduard Friedrich Poeppig, in 1832 described an affinity with Euryale ferox. A collection and description was made by the French botanist Aimé Bonpland in 1825. In 1850 James De Carle Sowerby recognised Poeppig's earlier description and transferred its epithet amazonica; the new name was rejected by Lindley. The current name, Victoria amazonica, did not come into widespread use until the twentieth century. Victoria regia, as it was named, was described by Tadeáš Haenke in 1801, it was once the subject of rivalry between Victorian gardeners in England. Always on the look out for a spectacular new species with which to impress their peers, Victorian "Gardeners" such as the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Northumberland started a well-mannered competition to become the first to cultivate and bring to flower this enormous lily.
In the end, the two aforementioned Dukes became the first to achieve this, Joseph Paxton being the first in November 1849 by replicating the lily's warm swampy habitat, a "Mr Ivison" the second and more successful at Syon House. The species captured the imagination of the public, was the subject of several dedicated monographs; the botanical illustrations of cultivated specimens in Fitch and W. J. Hooker's 1851 work Victoria Regia received critical acclaim in the Athenaeum, "they are accurate, they are beautiful"; the Duke of Devonshire presented Queen Victoria with one of the first of these flowers, named it in her honour. The lily, with ribbed undersurface and leaves veining "like transverse girders and supports", was Paxton's inspiration for The Crystal Palace, a building four times the size of St. Peter's in Rome. Media related to Victoria amazonica at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Victoria amazonica at Wikispecies
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is a Grade I-listed major park in Central London. It is the largest of four Royal Parks that form a chain from the entrance of Kensington Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Green Park past the main entrance to Buckingham Palace; the park is divided by the Long Water lakes. The park was established by Henry VIII in 1536 when he took the land from Westminster Abbey and used it as a hunting ground, it opened to the public in 1637 and became popular for May Day parades. Major improvements occurred in the early 18th century under the direction of Queen Caroline. Several duels took place in Hyde Park during this time involving members of the nobility; the Great Exhibition of 1851 was held in the park, for which The Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton, was erected. Free speech and demonstrations have been a key feature of Hyde Park since the 19th century. Speaker's Corner has been established as a point of free speech and debate since 1872, while the Chartists, the Reform League, the suffragettes, the Stop the War Coalition have all held protests there.
In the late 20th century, the park became known for holding large-scale free rock music concerts, featuring groups such as Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Queen. Major events have continued into the 21st century, such as Live 8 in 2005, the annual Hyde Park Winter Wonderland from 2007. Hyde Park is the largest Royal Park in London, it is bounded on the north by Bayswater Road, to the east by Park Lane, to the south by Knightsbridge. Further north is Paddington, further east. To the southeast, outside the park, is Hyde Park Corner, beyond, Green Park, St. James's Park and Buckingham Palace Gardens; the park has been Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens since 1987. To the west, Hyde Park merges with Kensington Gardens; the dividing line runs between Alexandra Gate to Victoria Gate via West Carriage Drive and the Serpentine Bridge. The Serpentine is to the south of the park area. Kensington Gardens has been separate from Hyde Park since 1728. Hyde Park covers 142 hectares, Kensington Gardens covers 111 hectares, giving a total area of 253 hectares.
During daylight, the two parks merge seamlessly into each other, but Kensington Gardens closes at dusk, Hyde Park remains open throughout the year from 5 a.m. until midnight. The park's name comes from the Manor of Hyde, the northeast sub-division of the manor of Eia and appears as such in the Domesday Book; the name is believed to be of Saxon origin, means a unit of land, the hide, appropriate for the support of a single family and dependents. Through the Middle Ages, it was property of Westminster Abbey, the woods in the manor were used both for firewood and shelter for game. Hyde Park was created for hunting by Henry Vlll in 1536 after he acquired the manor of Hyde from the Abbey, it was enclosed as a deer park and remained a private hunting ground until James I permitted limited access to gentlefolk, appointing a ranger to take charge. Charles I created the Ring, in 1637 he opened the park to the general public, it became a popular gathering place for May Day celebrations. At the start of the English Civil War in 1642, a series of fortifications were built along the east side of the park, including forts at what is now Marble Arch, Mount Street and Hyde Park Corner.
The latter included a strongpoint where visitors to London could be vetted. In 1652, during the Interregnum, Parliament ordered the 620-acre park to be sold for "ready money", it realised £17,000 with an additional £765 6s 2d for the resident deer. During the Great Plague of London in 1665, Hyde Park was used as a military camp. Following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, Charles II retook ownership of Hyde Park and enclosed it in a brick wall, he restocked deer in. The May Day parade continued to be a popular event. In 1689, William III moved his residence to Kensington Palace on the far side of Hyde Park and had a drive laid out across its southern edge, known as the King's Private Road; the drive is still in existence as a wide straight gravelled carriage track leading west from Hyde Park Corner across the southern boundary of Hyde Park towards Kensington Palace and now known as Rotten Row a corruption of rotteran, Ratten Row, Route du roi, or rotten. It is believed to be the first road in London to be lit at night, done to deter highwaymen.
In 1749, Horace Walpole was robbed while travelling through the park from Holland House. The row was used by the wealthy for horseback rides in the early 19th century. Hyde Park was a popular duelling spot during the 18th century, with 172 taking place, leading to 63 fatalities; the Hamilton–Mohun Duel took place there in 1712 when Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun fought James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton. Baron Mohun was killed while the Duke died shortly afterwards. John Wilkes fought Samuel Martin in 1772, as did Richard Brinsley Sheridan with Captain Thomas Mathews over the latter's libellous comments about Sheridan's fiancee Elizabeth Ann Linley. Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow fought Andrew Stuart in a Hyde Park duel in 1770. Military executions were common in Hyde Park at this time.
Banana
A banana is an edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguishing them from dessert bananas; the fruit is variable in size and firmness, but is elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind, which may be green, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant. All modern edible seedless bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana; the scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, Musa × paradisiaca for the hybrid Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution. The old scientific name for this hybrid, Musa sapientum, is no longer used. Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia, are to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea, they are grown in 135 countries for their fruit, to a lesser extent to make fiber, banana wine, banana beer and as ornamental plants.
The world's largest producers of bananas in 2017 were India and China, which together accounted for 38% of total production. Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between "bananas" and "plantains". In the Americas and Europe, "banana" refers to soft, dessert bananas those of the Cavendish group, which are the main exports from banana-growing countries. By contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called "plantains". In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the binary distinction is not useful and is not made in local languages; the term "banana" is used as the common name for the plants that produce the fruit. This can extend to other members of the genus Musa, such as the scarlet banana, the pink banana, the Fe'i bananas, it can refer to members of the genus Ensete, such as the snow banana and the economically important false banana. Both genera are in Musaceae; the banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure called a "corm".
Plants are tall and sturdy, are mistaken for trees, but what appears to be a trunk is a "false stem" or pseudostem. Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as long as the soil is at least 60 cm deep, has good drainage and is not compacted; the leaves of banana plants are composed of a blade. The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the edges of the sheath meet. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem the edges are forced apart. Cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on growing conditions. Most are around 5 m tall, with a range from'Dwarf Cavendish' plants at around 3 m to'Gros Michel' at 7 m or more. Leaves may grow 2.7 metres long and 60 cm wide. They are torn by the wind, resulting in the familiar frond look; when a banana plant is mature, the corm stops producing new leaves and begins to form a flower spike or inflorescence. A stem develops which grows up inside the pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until it emerges at the top; each pseudostem produces a single inflorescence known as the "banana heart".
After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole is perennial. In the plantation system of cultivation, only one of the offshoots will be allowed to develop in order to maintain spacing; the inflorescence contains many bracts between rows of flowers. The female flowers appear in rows further up the stem from the rows of male flowers; the ovary is inferior, meaning that the tiny petals and other flower parts appear at the tip of the ovary. The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster, made up of tiers, with up to 20 fruit to a tier; the hanging cluster is known as a bunch, comprising 3–20 tiers, or commercially as a "banana stem", can weigh 30–50 kilograms. Individual banana fruits average 125 grams, of which 75% is water and 25% dry matter; the fruit has been described as a "leathery berry". There is a protective outer layer with numerous long, thin strings, which run lengthwise between the skin and the edible inner portion.
The inner part of the common yellow dessert variety can be split lengthwise into three sections that correspond to the inner portions of the three carpels by manually deforming the unopened fruit. In cultivated varieties, the seeds are diminished nearly to non-existence. Bananas are slightly radioactive, more so than most other fruits, because of their potassium content and the small amounts of the isotope potassium-40 found in occurring potassium; the banana equivalent dose of radiation is sometimes used in nuclear communication to compare radiation levels and exposures. The word banana is thought to be of West African origin from the Wolof word banaana, passed
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass structure built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May until 15 October 1851, more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its 990,000 square feet exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet long, with an interior height of 128 feet, it was three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral. The introduction of the sheet glass method into Britain by Chance Brothers in 1832 made possible the production of large sheets of cheap but strong glass, its use in the Crystal Palace created a structure with the greatest area of glass seen in a building, it astonished visitors with its clear ceilings that did not require interior lights. It has been suggested that the name of the building resulted from a piece penned by the playwright Douglas Jerrold, who in July 1850 wrote in the satirical magazine Punch about the forthcoming Great Exhibition, referring to a "palace of crystal".
After the exhibition, the Palace was relocated to an area of South London known as Penge Common. It was rebuilt at the top of Penge Peak next to an affluent suburb of large villas, it stood there for 82 years from 1854 until its destruction by fire in November 1936. The nearby residential area was renamed Crystal Palace after the landmark; this included the Crystal Palace Park that surrounds the site, home of the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, a football stadium that hosted the FA Cup Final between 1895 and 1914. Crystal Palace F. C. were played at the Cup Final venue in their early years. The park still contains Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins's Crystal Palace Dinosaurs which date back to 1854; the huge, iron and glass, structure was erected in Hyde Park in London to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, which showcased the products of many countries throughout the world. The Commission in charge of mounting the Great Exhibition was established in January 1850, it was decided at the outset that the entire project would be funded by public subscription.
An executive Building Committee was formed to oversee the design and construction of the exhibition building, comprising Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Robert Stephenson, renowned architects Charles Barry and Thomas Leverton Donaldson, the Duke of Buccleuch and the Earl of Ellesmere, chaired by William Cubitt. By 15 March 1850 they were ready to invite submissions, which had to conform to several key specifications: the building had to be temporary, simple, as cheap as possible, economical to build within the short time remaining before the Exhibition opening, scheduled for 1 May 1851. Within three weeks, the committee had received some 245 entries, including 38 international submissions from Australia, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick and France. Two designs, both in iron and glass, were singled out for praise—one by Richard Turner, co-designer of the Palm House at Kew, the other by French architect Hector Horeau but despite the great number of submissions, the Committee rejected them all. Turner was furious at the rejection, badgered the commissioners for months afterwards, seeking compensation, but at an estimated £300,000, his design was too expensive.
As a last resort the committee came up with a standby design of its own, for a brick building in the rundbogenstil by Donaldson, featuring a sheet-iron dome designed by Brunel, but it was criticized and ridiculed when it was published in the newspapers. Adding to the Committee's woes, the site for the Exhibition was still not confirmed; the preferred site was in Hyde Park, adjacent to Princes Gate near Kensington Rd, but other sites considered included Wormwood Scrubs, Battersea Park, the Isle of Dogs, Victoria Park, Regent's Park. Opponents of the scheme lobbied strenuously against the use of Hyde Park; the most outspoken critic was arch-conservative Col. Charles de Laet Waldo Sibthorp. At this point renowned gardener Joseph Paxton became interested in the project, with the enthusiastic backing of Commission member Henry Cole, he decided to submit his own design. At this time, Paxton was chiefly known for his celebrated career as the head gardener for the William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth House, by 1850 he had become a preeminent figure in British horticulture and had earned great renown as a freelance garden designer.
At Chatsworth, Paxton had experimented extensively with glasshouse construction, developing many novel techniques for modular construction, using combinations of standard-sized sheets of glass, laminated wood, prefabricated cast iron. The "Great Stove" at Chatsworth was the first major application of Paxton's ridge-and-furrow roof design, was at the time the largest glass building in the world, covering around 28,000 square feet A decade taking advantage of the availability of the new cast plate glass, Paxton further developed his techniques with the Chatsworth Lily House, which featured a flat-roof version of the ridge-and-furrow glazing, a curtain wall system that allowed the hanging of vertical bays of glass from canti
