REPORT OF MR. NELSON L. DERBY.
397
ing the fourth side of the courts. In these wings are staircases for the actors and actresses, and in one of the courts are six steam-boilers, connected with the engines for heating and ventilation, and here placed to avoid the injurious results of an explosion. At the rear of the building is a central entrance to the rear stage, and to its right and left are situated magazines. At the height of the third gallery, which corresponds with the second story externally, a ceiling of iron and brick covers the main stairway, and above it is located a buffet or restaurant. In the upper stories of the four wings are wardrobes, rooms for scene painting, etc., to which purpose the room over the rear stage is also devoted. The ceilings of these rooms are all fire-proof, and, of course, all walls in the interior of the building are of masonry. Right and left from the stage are nine stories of vaulted passages, in whose floors are water-pipes, supplied by reservoirs in the attic, and furnished at short intervals with cocks, reached by small iron doors in the walls. These can throw powerful streams upon the stage in case of fire. A steam-engine, of eight horse-power, pumps water into the reservoir and moves the stage machinery. It is located in the cellar, under one of the wings. The auditorium accommodates in all three thousand persons, including six hundred standing places in the fourth gallery and the rear of the parquet. The breadth of the stage is 29 metres and its depth 24.6 metres. The opening covered by the curtain is 11.4 metres high, and 14.2 metres wide. The depth of the rear stage is 19.9 metres. The exterior of the building is covered by a layer of stone ll pon brick, and, though tastefulty treated architecturally, is, bi general, simple in design. The central portion of the building is covered by a semi-circular roof of iron, to which is hung the stage machinery and the fire-proof ceilings over the stage and the auditorium,—the latter of which is decorated with paintings by the first native artists. A wire curtain can separate the stage from the audience in case of fire. The v entilation of the opera-house is conducted by means of steam- punips, which force in the fresh air through a multitude of small openings dispersed about the floor of the parquet, the boxes and the galleries, thus occasioning no perceptible draughts. The heated gases pass away by an opening, four