Machinery of a very beautiful kind has been contrived for copying accurately, on a reduced or an enlarged scale, both medals and statues. The Venus de Medici itself could not be justly excluded from a purely industrial exhibition,—if placed in the centre of a series diminishing on the one side to a statuette of a foot high, and increasing on the other to a figure double her own height. Such a series, though fairly introduced as an illustration of industrial art, would, indeed, itself be highly interesting to the fine arts, as exhibiting the effect of change of magnitude, when the proportions remain identical. Enamel painting would be excluded as belonging to the fine arts, but every painting on porcelain partakes in fact of the nature of an enamel painting. A service of porcelain would of course be admitted as a specimen of mechanical art, however highly it might be adorned by this form of painting. New modes of engraving might be exhibited, analogous, for example, to that by which medals are so beautifully represented. There are several new methods of surface printing for multiplying original designs. In all such cases it would be very desirable to place before the eye of the spectator, the originals from which the copies were derived, and it might also add to the utility and interest of the Exposition, even to exhibit other forms of engraving of the same subject, for the sake of comparison. The instruments by which daguerreotypes and talbotypes are produced, would assuredly claim a place; so also might a collection of their results. It would also be instructive that some of these productions should be accompanied by the original forms or paintings from which they were copied. The general rule, therefore, might be, that specimens of the fine arts should not be admitted by themselves; but that they should not be excluded,—as illustrations,—either of the use of some tool or instrument by which their own production might be assisted,—or as forming parts or decorations of objects of the industrial arts,—or for the sake of comparison with the copies or imitations of them produced by these latter arts. [7] Since this was written, the beautiful effect produced by sculpture in the Crystal Palace has fully justified the decision of the Commission. In fact, the only real objection to the admission either of sculpture or painting arises from the extent of space required. CHAPTER VII. SITE AND CONSTRUCTION OF BUILDING. The questions connected with the construction of the building, were surrounded with considerable difficulties, even to the best informed. It should be capable of containing specimens, not merely of all the manufactured products of the world, but also of all the raw materials now used, and even of such, as being presented to the attention of competent persons, might probably become useful hereafter.