10 INTRODUCTION. 



of Elizabeth. The critic concludes his his- 

 torical summary with saying that "the fact so 

 long known in Europe was circulated as a 

 secret in Philadelphia in 1860 ! " 



But greater secrets in the arts and sciences 

 than the skeletonizing of a leaf, all exclusively 

 of American origin, remain at this moment 

 wholly unknown to the countrymen of the 

 critic ; while the particular art in question, when 

 it had fairly attracted the notice of American 

 taste and ingenuity, has in the brief period of 

 five years received at American hands a more 

 perfectly artistic development than all England 

 was capable of accomplishing in two centuries. 

 Accident alone has kept us in ignorance of an 

 art distinguished only for its gracefulness ; but 

 the same accident keeps Europe profoundly 

 ignorant of a multitude of processes, of every- 

 day use with us, which lighten and economize 

 human labor, and contribute largely, not only 

 to public and private comfort, but to national 

 wealth. 



Five years ago the first Phantom Bouquet 



