GUSTAVE FKOMENT. . 



"GusxAVE FEOMENT 5 rue Menilmontant, Paris. 



11 Scientific Instruments. Theodolite ; and various models of 

 electro-motive power." 



Assuredly brevity could no further go. Never was presented 

 a more conspicuous example of modest reserve on the part of 

 artistic genius the most exalted. No effort seems to have been 

 thought of by the exhibitor, even to call the attention of the com- 

 mentators of the catalogue, to the claims of these productions of 

 the highest scientific art ; for, while comment and panegyric have 

 'been liberally, not to say profusely, accorded to exhibitors, who, 

 whatever may have been their merits, presented claims immea- 

 surably below him whose illustrious labours we are about to 

 notice, not a single word of comment drew the attention of the 

 general public to objects, the fabrication of which would have 

 presented the highest attractions, even to the most idle and 

 incurious of the loungers of the Crystal Palace. 



Happily for the cause of science and art, and for that of justice, 

 the same neglect did not prevail among the eminent persons to 

 whom the distribution of honours was entrusted. They discerned 

 and appreciated the titles of M. Froment, and most justly accorded 

 him, by an unanimous vote, a council medal. The authorities of 

 his own country added to this the decoration of the Legion of 

 Honour. 



If M. Froment were as ambitious of personal eclat as of the 

 attainment of perfection in his workmanship, he would have trans- 

 ported to the Crystal Palace a part of the beautiful machinery of 

 his Parisian workshop, and would have exhibited, not his theodolite 

 alone, but the process of its fabrication. Had he done this (and 

 he might have accomplished it without difficulty), his station in 

 the Great Exhibition as an object of attraction would have 

 rivalled even the Koh-i-noor. 



The inventions and improvements of M. Froment, in the con- 

 struction of instruments of precision, and of scientific apparatus 

 generally, can nowhere be so advantageously seen and appreciated 

 as in his own workshop in Paris. There may be seen not only the 

 finished instruments and machines, but their practical application 

 in the construction of each other ! There may be seen electro- 

 magnetism applied on a large scale, as a permanent and regular 

 moving power, in the fabrication of mathematical and optical 

 instruments. 



The electro -motive machines of M. Froment, which are very 

 various in form, magnitude, and power, derive, nevertheless, their 

 motive force from one common principle, which is the same that 

 has been applied in certain forms of electro-magnetic telegraph. 



4. The property of the electro-magnet has been already so fully 

 o 2 " 195 



