180 REPORT—1862. 
is their smooth and noiseless motion, their compact form, and the facility with 
which they can be applied as helps or assistants to those of larger dimensions. 
They are, moreover, executed with a degree of finish and accuracy of workman- 
ship which cannot easily be surpassed. 
In the agricultural department the same observations apply to this description 
of engine, where it is extensively used on a smaller scale. They are equally well 
made, and the country at large are chiefly indebted to our agricultural engineers 
for many ingenious contrivances, and for their successful application, not exclu- 
prey to the farm, but to many other useful purposes in the economy of rural 
e. 
From the motive power employed in our manufactories and its adaptation to 
agriculture let us glance at the beautiful execution, compact form, and colossal 
dimensions of our marine engines, and we shall find, in combination, simplicity of 
form, concentration of power, and precision of action never before equalled in this 
or any other country. In this department of construction we are without rivals, 
and it is a source of pride that this country, as the first maritime nation in the world, 
should stand preeminently first as the leader of naval propulsion. 
In locomotive as in marine constructions we are not behind, if we are not in 
advance of other nations, although it must be admitted that several splendid spe- 
cimens of engines from France and Germany are exhibited by some of the best 
makers of those countries. There is, however, this distinction between the Conti- 
nental locomotives and those of home manufacture, and that is, in this country 
there is greater simplicity and design, greater compactness of form, and clearer 
conceptions in working out the details of the parts. These operations, when 
carefully executed to standard gauges, render each part of an engine a facsimile 
of its fellow; and hence follows the perfection of a system where every part is 
a repetition of a whole series of parts, and, in so far as accuracy is concerned, it is a 
great improvement on the old system of construction. 
The other parts of the Exhibition are well entitled to a careful inspection. In 
minerals and raw material the collections are numerous and valuable to an extent 
never before witnessed in any Exhibition; and the articles, fuel and ores, will be 
found highly instructive. The machinery for pumping, winding, and crushing is 
upon a scale sufficiently large and comprehensive to engage the attention of the 
mechanic and miner, and it is only to be regretted that in every case competent 
persons are not in attendance fully prepared to explain and initiate the inexperi- 
enced student in the principles of the workings, and the cases of instruments so 
neatly classified and spread before him for instruction. 
In the machinery department, although there is nothing that strikes the observer 
at first sight as new, yet there are many useful improvements calculated to econo- 
mize labour and facilitate the operations of spinning and weaving; and in tool- 
making there never was at any former period so many hands and heads at work as 
on the occasion pending the opening of the Exhibition. Some of the tools, such as 
the turning-, boring-, planing-, and slotting-machines, are of a very high order ; and 
the tool-machinery for the manufacture of fire-arms, shells, rockets, &c., is of that 
character as to render the whole operations, however minute, perfectly automaton 
or self-acting, with an accuracy of repetition that leayes the article, when finished, 
identical with every other article from the same machine. Such, in fact, is the 
perfection of the tool-system as it now exists, that in almost every case we may. 
calculate on a degree of exactitude that admits of no deviation beyond a thousandth 
art of an inch. 
Amongst the many interesting mechanical objects exhibited in the two annexes 
may be noticed as original, the spool-machine, for the winding of sewing-thread 
on bobbins, the machine for making paper bags (invented by a pupil of my own), 
the saw-riband machine, and others of great merit as regards ingenuity of con- 
trivance and adaptation of design. In manufactures, in design, and in constructive 
art, there is everything that could be desired in the shape of competitive skill; 
and, without viewing the success of the Great Exhibition of this year in a pecu- 
niary point of view, we may safely attribute its great success to the interesting and 
instructive character of the objects submitted to public inspection. 
Trrespective of the Exhibition, with its sairalbiahle and highly finished specimens, 
