REPORT 



OF THE MECHANICAL SECTION. 



The mechanical section ot the Polytechnic Association beg to 

 report : That but few inventions or improvements have been pre- 

 sented for the inspection and report of this committee, notwith- 

 standing that the matter was extensively advertised in the public 

 journals. This, in the opinion of the committee, may be attribu- 

 ted to the preoccupation of our inventors and mechanics in the 

 present unhappy struggle ; and they venture to hope that, under 

 other circumstances, next year may be different. 



Your committee report, that the following improvements were 

 submitted, and that one or other of the committee personally 

 inspected them : 



ist. "Fontayne's photographic machine, for rapidly multiplying 

 photographic pictures from negatives." 



Several of your committee visited the inventor at his rooms, on 

 Broadway, and had the operation of the machine explained to them. 

 The operation is carried on by means of a mechanical contrivance, 

 by which portions of the surface of an extremely sensitive sheet of 

 photographically prepared paper, and made to pass in succession 

 underneath an aperture, in which is fixed, in a movable socket, the 

 negative to. be printed from. Condensed light is thrown into this 

 aperture, every opening and closing of which occupying from a 

 second to a fraction of a second of time, according to the speed at 

 which the machine is driven, constitutes an impression or positive, 

 which is finished in the usual manner. 



In the opinion of your committee it is an ingenious and beauti- 

 fully adapted piece of mechanism, and perfectly answers the pur- 

 pose intended ; and is, they believe, the first machine ever applied 

 to the multiplication of photographs, and seems to supply a want 

 hitherto felt, namely, a cheap and rapid mode of illustration ; a 

 desideratum of great importance, not only to book publishers, but 

 to the advertising public; a thousand copies of an engraving or 

 wood cut made in this machine costing but little more than one 

 copy made in the usual manner, as stated by the inventor. 



The machine being in successful operation, and satisfactory 

 results having been exhibited to your committee, they respectfully 

 recommend that a gold medal be awarded to the inventor, as a mark 



