September 13, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



183 



hand-loom on which the finest silks of Lyons and the finest velvets 

 of Rhenish Prussia are to-day woven ; and from these points the 

 typical weavers could be assembled with their simple looms on 

 which they make those finest goods, which are in themselves a 

 work of art. 



In the matter of printing textile fabrics, the art began by stamp- 

 ing figures of a coarse and rude kind by hand upon the cloth ; and 

 that same art is still carried on in the same way in China and in 

 Japan, and could be brought before the eye in the exhibition ; while 

 the progress in the art of printing textile fabrics could be witnessed 

 in the next section as it is now carried on by the use of machines 

 of the finest and highest types. But this art would end again in 

 the bringing from France the block printers, who still print by 

 hand the finest examples of the French cretonnes. 



This conception of the method of the proposed exhibition is 

 wholly consistent with making the exhibition itself a medium for 

 bringing into notice the finest examples of modern machinery and 

 the finest types of modern fabrics. The only difficulty which might 

 be experienced in carrying out this conception might be that too 

 many makers of machinery and venders of the fabrics of the finest 

 types would apply for place. 



The personal factor and the element of individual profit may 

 therefore be brought to bear in connection with this plan, as well 

 as in any other way. The plan only gives a definite point or pur- 

 pose to the undertaking, and would make the whole exhibition an 

 example of progress and a means of comparing the mechanism by 

 which the people of different countries and races have clothed 

 themselves or otherwise provided for material wants in the past 

 and do now clothe and serve themselves in the present. 



If it were too great an undertaking to bring together typical ex- 

 amples of the garments of the past as well as of the present, never- 

 theless, pictures may be gathered to hang upon the walls of this 

 exhibition, artistic in their conception, typical of the art in the dif- 

 ferent countries in their execution, and yet object lessons in the 

 history of the textile arts. 



I have in my possession six pictures painted in China on silk, 

 giving the whole story of cotton, from the field to the fabric, which 

 were sent to me by Messrs. Russell and Co. to exhibit at Atlanta, 

 accompanied by a complete set of garments worn by the common 

 people of China. They were sent to me without cost, but were 

 evidently expensive. I have already mentioned the little artistic 

 clay figures which can be purchased in India, showing every type 

 of costume, at a mere trifling cost. 



If we pass on from the textile out to the treatment of metal, 

 taking iron as an example, we find that iron is still treated in Spain 

 as it was when the Toledo blade became famous. It is treated in 

 Africa in the crudest manner. In the heart of the southern moun- 

 tains, iron and steel are still made directly from the ore in wayside 

 furnaces heated with charcoal on what I believe are called " Cata- 

 lan forges." How various or how widespread over the world are 

 the different methods of treating the ore of iron, I am not informed, 

 but all these primary methods could be brought, with those who 

 practise them, into one section of the exhibition ; and since the in- 

 troduction of the most modern type of furnace worked by gas has 

 been adopted, it has also become possible to set up small ex- 

 amples of the most modern form of producing iron and steel and 

 working these metals into manifold shades. The whole history of 

 metallurgy as applied to iron can be brought before the eye ; and 

 here again the element of personal interest may be brought to bear 

 on the part of those who desire to exhibit the most modern types 

 of stoves, smelting furnaces, and the like. 



Perhaps the most interesting and the most varied of the many 

 arts which can be brought together into view would be the types 

 of the tools and machines used by various races and nations in the 

 conduct of agriculture. Herein again, the plough, as pictured upon 

 the walls of the Pyramids, could be brought from the fields of 

 Egypt, with the fellahin, who still make use of that prehistoric im- 

 plement ; and alongside could be placed the modern polished steel 

 plough, of which I have a record among my insurance papers that 

 when accidentally placed outside a barn it concentrated the rays of 

 the sun, and reflected them in such a way as to set the barn on fire. 

 Herein, again, there would be a rush of competitors to exhibit the 

 best types of the most modern agricultural tools and machines. 



Again, the one art which is of all others prehistoric is that of the 

 potter. Would it not be possible to bring the potters from many 

 lands into a single section with their primitive implements, placed 

 alongside the most modern type of apparatus with their artists as 

 well as their ovens .' 



Lastly, there is nothing like leather. How easy it would be to 

 bring into the same section the worker in leather from different 

 parts of the world ; the cobbler from that part of this country 

 which has not yet been penetrated by the railway, alongside the 

 modern machines by which each visitor, having been measured on 

 entering the section, may have a last prepared to fit his or her foot, 

 and a pair of finished boots made to measure ready to put on, 

 within the time that would be necessary to get even a superficial 

 idea of the mechanism by which the work had been accomplished. 



When all these and many other arts had thus been brought to- 

 gether, to be conducted under one great roof by representatives of 

 many races and many nations, each according to his kind dwelling 

 in his accustomed way and conducting all the household arts as they 

 are conducted at home, the Arab in his tent, the African in his hut, 

 the Mexican Indian in his adobe house, the mountaineer of the 

 South in his log cabin, the native of Japan in his dwelling of wood 

 and paper, the Chinaman, the Aleut, the Alaskan, and all the rest 

 — what could be more attractive or instructive? And lastly, what 

 would pay better in a mere commercial sense ? 



I therefore submit that my conception of an exhibition which 

 shall give the history of industrial progress, by means of object 

 lessons drawn from the past, but yet existing in the present, is 

 wholly consistent with the necessary element of personal interest 

 and personal profit on the part of those who contribute the modern 

 examples of existing machinery. 



In addition to these object lessons, the art of the painter, and 

 even of the sculptor, may be invoked to decorate the walls ; the 

 art of the engineer and of the mill constructor may be called in to 

 build the structures ; while the services of the statistician, the 

 economist and the ready writer, and the engraver would be re- 

 quired to prepare the catalogue and to write the descriptions, so as 

 to tell the whole story of what the eye could see in part. 



This would be the main conception to be carried out, either in 

 the main building or in the main series of buildings. Auxiliary 

 buildings may be added by States, in the manner previously in- 

 dicated, in which examples of every crude material, together with 

 maps and descriptions showing the resources of any section of the 

 country, might be brought together. If, in addition to this, it was 

 thought expedient to make preparation for a great fair or bazaar 

 where goods could be exhibited and sold according to the will of 

 the contributor, that purpose might also be provided for in the 

 exact measure of the demand which would ensue for space or 

 place. The conditions precedent to carry out this conception con- 

 sist, first, in finding the money which will be required to make the 

 preparation, and, second, the men (especially the man) capable of 

 laying out, executing, guiding, and directing the whole work. 



AN UNKNOWN ORGAN OF SENSE. 



In the frequent dwelling upon questions of development, which 

 one cannot avoid in these days, one sometimes wonders whether 

 the future is destined to endow man with any senses which he is 

 not now in possession of. Hovvever that may be, it is probably 

 unknown to a great many of the laity that within a few years past 

 a new organ of sense has been discovered, the existence of which 

 had not before been so much as suspected. It was always known 

 that the internal ear was a curiously complicated structure, and 

 there was little hope of being able to make out the separate func- 

 tions, in hearing, played by all its different parts. But it was not 

 suspected, even when Flourens had made his celebrated experi- 

 ments in 1S24, that one part of it — the three narrow semicircular 

 tubes which spread out in three planes at right-angles to each 

 other — might be the organ of a totally different sense. It is 

 only now that the question has been definitely set at rest by the 

 admirable experiments of Brener. There can no longer be any 

 doubt that the semicircular canals are the organ for sensations, 

 whether conscious or not, which enable us to determine both the 

 direction and the amount of all rotations performed either by the 



