ExniBiTiox Addkesses. 177 



1839 the only printing j^resses which could have been present in 

 your exhibition carried their type npon a horizontal bed, and deliv- 

 oi-ed perha])s one hundred printed sheets "vvhere this one delivers a 

 tliousand. 



Among the machinery illustrative of the textile arts, you have 

 again a novelty as admirable for its ingenuity as it is valuable for its 

 ability. This is the traveling shuttle, by means of which a web of 

 the largest dimensions may be woven as easily at one of the smallest^ 

 In the w^eaving of silk shawls in Italy, I have seen three persons at 

 once fully occupied in throwing the shuttle ; one stationed at each 

 end to launch it, and a third placed beneath to advance it where it 

 failed to run its course. This, it is true, w^as in hand weaving ; but 

 it is to be borne in mind that beyond certain limits of breadth in the- 

 web, the power loom becomes uncertain in its action, or wholly 

 unavailable. I need not say that this admirable invention would not 

 have ajDpeared in j^our exhibition of thirty years ago, since, if I am 

 correctly informed, it is in this present exhibition that it has made its 

 first public appearance anyw^iiere. I cannot but regret that its origi- 

 nator had not brought it out a year or two earlier, for I am sure that 

 at the Exposition of 1807 it would have produced a signal sensation, 

 and w^ould have commanded from the jury the highest expression of 

 their approbation. 



I might j)roceed to enumerate many other examples to illustrate 

 how large have been the changes which thirty years have brought 

 about in the industrial arts, as they strike even the observer who 

 looks only upon the surface. There, for instance, is the great manu- 

 facture of India rubber, hardly known in 1839, but now extending 

 to an endless variety of objects of daily use. There is the manufac- 

 ture of paper from w^ood, grass and straw, which, within the same 

 period, has grown into an important industry ; wdiile in the present 

 exhibition we have the process reversed, and wood, for the purposes 

 of joinery, cabinet making, marqueterie, and the manufacture of 

 hollow-ware, is produced from paper. There is the important art of 

 galvanoplasty, which thirty years ago had not been thought of, but 

 of which the applications are now even more general than those of 

 photography. By means of this art, not only may all solid objects, 

 of every description which it is desired to reproduce, be faithfully 

 copied, but in the case of valuable structures in metal, liable to cor- 

 rosion by exposure, it furnishes a complete and permanent protec- 

 tion. It is employed also to harden the surfaces of printers' type ; it 



[Inst.] 12 



