Chatsworth.- May 23. When we last visited this place in May, 1839 (see our preceding vol. p. 450.), the grand conservatory was just beginning to be glazed, and at present the glazing is almost completed. The panes are 3 ft. 9 in. in length, and 6 in. in width, and the work was performed by Mr. Drake, glazier, Edgeware Road, London, at the rate of 16d. per square foot. The sash-bars are of deal, cut out by machinery impelled by steam. Fig. 61. is a section of the bar of the full size; and fig. 62. are specimens of the glass of the full thickness, showing at b the thinnest glass, and at a the very thickest that is used in the conservatory; or, in other words, showing the variation of thickness that takes place in this description of glass. The roof, as most of our readers know, is in the ridge-and-furrow manner, and the quantity of sash-bar ased in forming the sides of the ridges, exceeds 40 miles in length. The hot-water heating-apparatus is already put up by Messrs. Walker of Manchester; there are 8 boilers, and the length of pipe, which is 4 in. in diameter within, is about 7 miles. There is such a thorough command of water on the adjoining rising grounds, that it would be easy to form a system of pipes for throwing down a shower over the whole interior of the house, in Messrs. Loddiges's manner; and the water for this purpose might be heated by passing the pipes containing it through a mile or two of the heating pipes. This has already been done with the pipes which supply water for the ordinary watering of the house. The progress of fitting up the interior is going on steadily, and will be completed, and many of the trees planted, in the course of the autumn. The trees in the arboretum are in a most thriving state; and planting on little hills of prepared soil, keeping these hills afterwards clear of weeds and covered with short grass, has done as much here for the growth of the plants as it has done at Elvaston Castle and the Derby Arboretum. Some of the rarer species of Pinus Abies and Picea have made vigorous shoots, and will soon become fine trees. Acer palmatum, which was killed every where about London, by the winter of 1837-8, except in Mr. Knight's nursery, has never had any protection here, and is now 3 ft. high in the open arboretum. The nomenclature of the arboretum is unavoidably in a state of confusion; because, Mr. Paxton's object being to collect as many species as he could, wherever he found a different name he ordered a plant, and planted it with the name which he received, with a view to future comparison and correction. In another year, by sending one of his young men to the Derby Arboretum, he will be able to adjust the nomenclature at Chatsworth to that of the Arboretum at Derby, which we think it will not be denied is at present the most correctly named collection of trees and shrubs in England. If it is not so, then we have spent ten years of our life, and expended in cash or credit above 10,000l., in vain.
