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THE 



ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 



THE AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION OF 1853. 



The decidedly sreat event of the year 1853, so far as relates to the 



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progress of science and the useful arts in the United States, has been 

 the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, in New York. This 



?-eat enterprise, conceived by a few public-spirited citizens of New 

 ork soon after the close of the London Exhibition, was incorporated 

 on the llth of March, 1852, when operations were immediately com- 

 menced. The co-operation and countenance of the Federal Govern- 

 ment was very early secured, and the building for the reception of 

 goods, was made a bonded warehouse in which goods intended for 

 exhibition might be admitted duty free. The officers intrusted with 

 the management of the Exhibition, consisted of a board of Directors, 

 who elected Theodore Sedgwick, Esq., President of the Association, 

 and William Whetten, Esq., Secretary ; Mr. C. E. Detmold was also 

 appointed Architect and Engineer. In the mean time steps had been 

 taken to obtain a proper plan for the building to be erected. And 

 here serious difficulties had presented themselves. The matter of 

 iron construction on a large scale was, and is, almost entirely new in 

 this country. No edifice entirely of iron yet existed in the United 

 States, and the want of experience on the part of both architects and 

 engineers, presented serious obstacles. Many ingenious plans were 

 offered. Sir Joseph Paxton, with great liberality, furnished one of 

 singular beauty, but the peculiar shape of the ground to be occupied 

 rendered it impossible to use it. The late Mr. Downing offered 

 another of striking ingenuity, but this was also excluded by the terms 

 of the grant of land from the City, which peremptorily required that 

 the building should be exclusively of iron and glass. Mr. Leopold 

 Eidlitz presented a plan with a suspension roof, intended to obviate 

 the difficulty of spanning great widths by arches. Mr. James Bogar- 

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