SECRETARY'S REPORT. 223 



Many other specimens of American ingenuity were sliown, 

 among- tliem a good flax and fibre dressing machine, cxhil)itcd 

 by a firm in New York city ; a spacing and boring macliine, a 

 self-registering dynamometer, a duplex steam-pump, a stationary 

 engine and governors, a stone-breaking machine, a rope and 

 cord machine, a gas regulator, and an " iron refrigerator," by 

 G. H. Sanborn, of Boston ; a belt-shifter, by J. C. Gove, of 

 Jamaica Plain. The California pump, of very ingenious 

 design, attracted a good deal of attention, and the general 

 impression was that it was a " good idea." Ross's conical 

 burr-stone mills attracted much notice, and got a medal. 

 Ericsson's hot air engines were also on exhibition. 



A steam fire engine, from Lee & Earned, of New York, was 

 compact, light, easily worked, and received a medal for inge- 

 nuity of design and good workmanship. A newspaper address- 

 ing machine, entered by Mr. S. Sweet, of New York, also 

 received a medal. Signal telegraphs were also exhibited. A 

 regular Yankee machine for making shoes was sent from Boston, 

 said to be capable of sewing a pair of shoes, all ready to the 

 finislier's liand, in twenty minutes ! It worked to a charm, and 

 seemed to " astonish the natives." 



Wilcox and Gibb's sewing machines took the lead, in my 

 opinion, of the many patterns on exhibition, and it is hardly 

 necessary to say that they attracted about tliem an admiring 

 crowd. This machine is a single stitch, very simple in con- 

 trivance, easily understood and kept in order, and, what is often 

 of considerable importance, runs without the noise which most 

 other machines produce. Tiiis class of machines may almost 

 be said to be peculiarly American, for the American machines 

 take the lead all over Europe, and have invariably borne off the 

 prizes over the European. No invention of modern times is 

 regarded with more interest by the bet/er portion of mankind. 



A thousand specimens of American minerals were exhibited 

 in the department of mining, quarrying, metallurgy and 

 mineral products, and made a highly interesting and creditable 

 show. Small cabinets of Lake Superior copper and minerals, 

 the zinc ores of the extensive mines of the New Jersey Com- 

 pany, and cases of gold, silver, quicksilver ores, and native 

 sulphur and borax, were also exhibited. 



