5. In consequence of the advertisement thus issued, no less than 248 plans and suggestions, many of them the productions of foreign artists, were sent in to the Commissioners. A large number of these were of a very elaborate character, and bore evident marks of considerable application and ability. 6. Soon after the site had been selected, some other important arrangements having also by this time been made, the Commissioners prepared and published a statement (21 February) explanatory of the nature and objects of the Exhibition, which was widely circulated in this country, was forwarded to our consuls abroad and to the foreign consuls in England, and was officially transmitted by the Secretary of State to all Foreign Governments, and to all the Governors of the British Colonies, as well as to India. In this statement it was announced that "Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to grant a site for the purpose (of the Exhibition) on the south side of Hyde Park, lying between the Kensington Drive and the ride commonly called Rotten Row." 7. The site having been thus deliberately chosen and formally announced, all subsequent proceedings connected with the building have been taken with direct reference to it. The plans have been prepared with a view to its peculiarities, and the form of the building and its internal as well as its external arrangements have been determined by them. The amount of space available for the display of articles has been calculated upon the data afforded by the site, and from a calculation of this amount the Commissioners have been able to assign to each foreign country a definite space for the arrangement of its own productions. All the necessary working-drawings and specifications have been prepared with very great labour and at considerable expense, and have now been issued in a form which will insure to the Commissioners the certainty of obtaining, within a few days, _bonâ fide_ tenders for the execution of a design presenting every facility for construction within the time prescribed. The mechanical difficulties have been surmounted, and all the preliminary arrangements, even to the extent of provision for an effective drainage and a sufficient water supply, have been entered into. The whole of these preparations have reference to this particular site only, and are inapplicable or unsuitable to any other.