"Entering the Rotunda, the attention of the visitor is immediately arrested by its beautiful effect and extremely novel arrangement. It forms a circle of some 60 feet in diameter, and is crowned with a dome, or, in fact, a double dome, as a lesser cupola rises from the eye of the great dome to the height of 74 feet from the floor. The dome rests on eight piers of light character; the space between each pier is divided by stancheons into three compartments; and there are three galleries, and from these entrance is obtained to the numerous offices of the building. The stancheons, galleries, ribs of dome, &c., are of iron; and, in fact, every part seems to be made of iron; and the arrangement of patterns in the stancheons, brackets of galleries, and soffits of galleries is original and good. There are about 300 tons of iron used in the building, in the several parts, each rib, of which there are thirty-two, weighing two tons. The ornament chiefly used is a cable, twisted about in various patterns; and the balustrade to the galleries is of loops of cable, at intervals broken by the introduction of the city arms. The framework to the offices is of wood, and panelled with rough plate-glass. By this means they receive light from the great dome of the hall. The dome itself is glazed with large pieces of roughened plate-glass of great thickness, the small upper dome having glass of a yellow tint. The chief public offices surrounding the Rotunda are those appropriated to the Corporation officers who have to collect the coal dues, and who are, we understand, appointed by the Corporation. "The floor of the Rotunda is composed of inlaid woods, disposed in form of a mariner's compass, within a border of Greek fret. The flooring consists of upwards of 4000 pieces of wood, of various kinds. The varieties of wood employed comprise black ebony, black oak, common and red English oak, wainscott, white holly, mahogany, American elm, red and white walnut, and mulberry. The appearance of this floor is beautiful in the extreme. The whole of these materials were prepared by Messrs. Davison and Symington's patent process of seasoning woods. The same desiccating process has been applied to the woodwork throughout the building. The black oak introduced is part of an old tree which was discovered in the bed of the river Tyne, where it had unquestionably lain between four and five centuries. The mulberry wood of which the blade of the dagger in the shield of the city arms is composed, is a piece of a tree planted by Peter the Great, when he worked as a shipwright in Deptford Dockyard.