ANNIVERSARY AI>DRESS. 51 



eastern part of it upon a very extensive scale. The great Fair of 

 Nisji Novogorod in Central Russia, vv'hich is held once in every 

 three years, is attended by nearly half a million of people. Hero 

 the products of Europe are exchanged against those of Asia. The 

 waters of the two rivers, the Oka and the Wolga, at the confluence 

 of which it is held, are covered with a mass of shipping ; and at no 

 place in the world is there such a mingling of different nationali- 

 ties ; Russians, Circassians, Persians, Chinese, Tartars, East In- 

 dians, Swedes, Danes, Germans, French, English and Americans, 

 with their various costumes, habits and languages, all intermixed 

 in the unceasing strife of traffic during the two months which the 

 Fair lasts. 



It will be seen from this description of the Fair, that its object 

 was very different from that exhibition of the industrial products 

 of a nation — agricultural, manufacturing and mechanical — which 

 we have designated by the same name. Bat the great Fairs did, 

 in a degree, partake of the character of an international industrial 

 exhibition, inasmuch as they brought together the products and 

 people of different nations, and gave the spectator a general view 

 of the varied industry of the world. Though they did much in this 

 way to disseminate a knowledge of the industrial productions of dif- 

 fferent countries they did little to stimulate the useful arts. Neither 

 tools, utensils, machines or new inventions were ever seen at these 

 Fairs, nor was agriculture or horticulture encouraged by any ex- 

 hibition there of products of superior excellence. This has been 

 the peculiar province of the modern industrial exliibition which is 

 of very recent origin extending no farther back than about the 

 close of the last century. There were instances of great festivals 

 instituted by the absolute monarch of antiquity which may be 

 said, at least, in their effect, to have partaken of the character of 

 modern exhibitions from the great display which they made of the 

 industrial arts and the spirit of emulation they awakened. 



Ptolemy Philoraeter, one of the most magnificent of the Egyptiaa 

 monarchs, about 150 years before the Christian era instituted a 

 festival of this description at the city of Alexandria upon a scale 

 so stupendous that the details, as we read them in Athenaeus, 

 strike us with astonishment. It was designed to exhibit to the 

 world what the leading art and skill of Egypt could produce, and 

 independently of what Avas exhibited in a gorgeous procession, we 

 read in the decoration of the great pavillion of a display of furni- 

 ture, that in its costliness, richness and variety would startle our 

 modern cabinet makers. One hundred couches of gold, covered 

 with purple cloth of the finest texture, gold and silver vessels, and 



