the President of the United States, and singing by the New York Sacred Harmonic Society.

The main features of the building, which, though inferior in size to that of the World's Exhibition in London, is universally confessed to be its superior in architectural beauty and general effect, are thus described: It is, with the exception of the floor, entirely constructed of iron and glass. The edifice is in the form of a Greek cross, surmounted by a dome at the intersection. Each diameter of the cross is 365 feet long, and each arm of the cross is, on the ground plan, 149 feet broad. On entering the building, the observer's eye is greeted by the vista of an arched nave, 41 feet wide, 67 feet high, and 365 long; and, on approaching the centre, he finds himself under a dome 100 feet in diameter and 118 feet high. The building contains on the ground floor 111,000 square feet of space, and in its galleries, which are 54 feet wide, 62,000 square feet more, making a total area of 173,000 square feet, or about four acres surface for the purposes of exhibition. The iron used in the work is estimated at about 1,250 tons; the glass at 39,000 square feet. The plan of the building was furnished by Messrs. Carztensen and Gildemeister, and the edifice itself erected on Reservoir-square, in the city of New York, the use of the grounds having been granted by the municipal authorities of the city.

INCE the opening of the Exhibition, it has been very numerously frequented by visitors. The collection of articles, both foreign and domestic, is fully equal to the largest public expectation; many of them being among the rarest and most valuable specimens of art in Europe and America, and reflecting the highest credit on the ingenuity and skill of the various nations whose products they are. To enter upon a more particular enumeration in these pages would be unnecessary. The enterprise, it may be remarked, is regarded as having been in all respects successful, and the benefits anticipated from it sure to be realized.

The great increase of the means of intercommunication by railroads, and the consequent public and private advantage accruing therefrom to the country, has during the year been in a measure counterbalanced by the large number of appalling disasters which have occurred, through unforeseen accident or the carelessness of the managers of the roads. A collision took place on the 23d of

ADMINISTRATION OF PIERCE.

659 April, near Chicago, between the trains of the Central Michigan and Northern Indiana Railroads, by which twenty persons were killed and a large number seriously injured. On the 2d of August an accident occurred on the Belvidere and Delaware Railroad, by the cars running off the track. Ten persons were killed outright and a large number wounded. A little later in the month a collision occurred between the New York and Philadelphia trains, near Amboy, by which nearly thirty persons were injured and several killed. On the 12th of the month a shocking disaster occurred on the Providence and Worcester Railroad. A train containing a large pleasure party came in violent collision with another, and some fifteen persons were killed and a large number injured. But the most appalling accident of this nature occurred on the 6th of May, at Norwalk, in Connecticut, on the New York and New Haven Railroad. The drawbridge at Norwalk had been raised to permit a steamer to pass, and the locomotive, baggage car, and two passenger cars of the train from New York were precipitated into the river below, a distance of some twenty feet, and all the passengers buried beneath the water, nearly all of whom were instantly killed or drowned before assistance could reach them. It appeared from the subsequent evidence taken before a jury of inquest, that the draw of the bridge was open, and that the proper signal was given by the keeper of the bridge; but the engineer did not observe the signal, and proceeded with the train, realizing the fatal result that followed. More than fifty lives were lost, and as many more injured. The legislature of Connec-. ticut, being in session at the time of the disaster, appointed a special committee to investigate the subject, and to report a more stringent public enactment for the regulation of railroads. A law of this nature was passed; and public attention having been generally aroused to the subject, similar action has been taken by the legislatures of other States. The following is believed to be a nearly accurate estimate of the number of railroad accidents which have occurred in the United States within the limits of time specified:

Among the most extensive conflagrations which have occurred in 1853, was the destructive fire which took place in Oswego, New York, on the 5th of July. Nearly 200 dwellings and stores were destroyed, at an estimated loss of over a million dollars. The steamer Cherokee, while lying at her wharf in New York, and on the point of sailing, with a full cargo on board, was destroyed by fire on the 25th of August. The loss of property was nearly half a million dollars.

GAIN has the scourge of yellow fever visited the chief cities of the South; and the present year will long be held in painful remembrance as one of the most disastrous ever experienced. The mortality has even exceeded that produced by the Asiatic cholera, when that terrible visitant passed over the country. The virulence of the disease was never exceeded, especially in the city of New Orleans, where it raged with the most fatal effects. The Howard Association of that city, in their appeal to the public for assistance, state that the deaths were fully 70 per cent. of all who were attacked. The epidemic commenced early in May, and by degrees extended itself until, in the months of July and August, the deaths were from 200 to 300 a day. Such records as these show how terrible were the ravages of the disease: "August 18.-Number of deaths during the forty-eight hours ending this morning, 410, of which 366 were by yellow fever." "August 19.-Deaths reported for to-day, 242; yellow fever, 227, &c." The whole number of deaths was about 9,000! and that, too, when the city had been to a great degree deserted by its population, who had fled elsewhere for safety. Says a New Orleans paper of that period: "We have never seen such a veritable stampede as the epidemic has occasioned. Thousands who have lived among us for six or eight years, who had passed unscathed through the fever of 1847, and who were wont to consider themselves proof against its attacks, have taken the alarm. We do not think New Orleans has ever been as completely deserted by her merchants and professional men as she is now." At least seveneighths of those who were unacclimated, it is also stated, left the city. The disease was at first confined chiefly to European emigrants, a large number of whom had been drawn to the city to labour on the public works; but it soon after spread, embracing all classes among its victims. Business, as a matter of course, was virtually sus