THE 



AMUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVEKY. 



MECHANICS AND USEFUL ABT& 



THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1862, AND ITS 



NOVELTIES. 



THE second great English Exhibition of the Industry of all Na- 

 tions opened at London, May 1st, 1862, and continued for six months; 

 the average daily attendance of visitors being about 40,000. 



In the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1862, the building erected 

 for the purposes of this Exhibition was fully described, and no reca- 

 pitulation is here necessary, further than to state that the area of 

 ground covered by the Exhibition edifice was 26 acres, with a flooring 

 space of more than 1,500,000 square feet; while the Exhibition 

 building of 1851 covered but 23 acres, and had a flooring space less 

 than a million of feet. 



Taking the Exhibition as a whole, no new invention or discovery 

 of any very great value or interest was brought forward ; but as an 

 exhibition illustrative of the present state of the useful and fine arts, 

 or of the progress which man has made in rendering natural products 

 subservient to his necessities or his pleasures, it was magnificent and 

 wonderful, far beyond anything of a similar character which the 

 world has hitherto witnessed. 



From notes taken and material gathered during a careful personal 

 inspection and study of the Exhibition, the Editor has prepared the 

 following summary of matters which have seemed to him most worthy 

 the attention of his readers. 



Machinery. In machinery, it was the judgment of the jury on 

 mechanical inventions that no construction involving any strikingly 

 new thought was exhibited. Mr. Fairbairn, in his address before the 

 Section of Mechanical Science of the British Association, 1862, stated 

 that the most noticeable feature of the department of mechanical 

 inventions in the Exhibition was, in his judgment, " that the machines 

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