10 ON MUSEUMS, &c., 



of the enormous multitude of matters and things displayed; in the midst 

 of which nevertheless reigned the most perfect order, making examina- 

 tion and study quite possible. Without again being as specific, it 

 will suflSce to say, that after these products of mining and metallurgy 

 just named, came products of the cultivation of forests and of the 

 trades appertaining thereto. Then, the products of shooting, fishing, 

 and of the gathering of fruits obtained without cultivation. Then, 

 agricultural products (not used as food), easily preserved; which 

 included among other textile materials, such as raw cotton and hemp, 

 the cocoons of silk worms. Then came chemical and pharmaceutical 

 products. Then specimens of the chemical processes for bleaching, 

 dying, pointing and dressing. Then leather and skins, including gut 

 work. The whole of the Russian department was redolent of Russia 

 leather. 



We reached now the sixth gallery, which was nearly a mile round 

 and of extra dimensions. This was the Gallery of Machines, of appa- 

 ratus and processes employed in the common arts. 



All along its middle space was a slightly raised platform, on which 

 appeared a forest of cast-iron with a plentiful undergrowth of the same 

 material; mechanisms great and small applied to every human purpose, 

 most of them busily in action. Here were railway apparatus, telegraph 

 apparatus, civil engineering apparatus, architectural apparatus, naviga- 

 tion and life-boat apparatus. 



I subjoin an extract from my memoranda : — 



" I nest undertake the outermost gallery, that of Machines. This is nearly a 

 mile round: it ought to be journeyed through twice for even a cursory view of 

 it, as there is a highway on each side of the central roped-off space in .which for the 

 most part the machines are placed, while there is a vast display also of objects 

 round the whole of the sides of each of the passages opposite to the central enclosed 

 space. This part of the building is about twice the height of the interior zones, to 

 give room for machine-structures of considerable altitude when set up. The rest- 

 less sound of innumerable machines at work is immediately to be heard ; their 

 movements also strike the eye ; the smell of oil and oily steam salutes the nostrils, 

 but only faintly ; the furnaces, the generateurs de vapeur, are placed at intervals 

 outside. Entering as before on the French side I notice a gigantic trophy of 

 iron and steel bars ready to be converted into anything. I pass cannon, fire- 

 engines, looms for all fabrics at work, steam-engines of an endless variety of 

 construction, circular saws, brick-making machines, gigantic organs here and 

 there pealing out grand music occasionally amidst the confused machine-babel> 

 steam-pumps bringing in actual rivers of water, distilling apparatus, sugar-making 

 apparatus, models of ships-of-war with their machinery of propulsion. In Prussia, 



