834 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
These hollow bricks are formed in the same manner as lead 
pipe, by being expelled through a die with a solid core. They 
have a degree of solidity unusual with moulded bricks made 
from wet clay. The quantity of water used is in fact only so 
much as is necessary to insure plasticity, so that the clay is 
very stiff before compression, and the bricks come from the 
die firm and solid so as to permit their being piled up immedi¬ 
ately to the height of six bricks superposed edgewise. 
SHOE-MAKING MACHINES. 
Shoes fastened by pegs or nails have long been manufactured 
on a large scale in the United States; but in general, if not 
universally, the work has been done by hand. Since the year 
1844, screws have been employed more or less extensively in 
France for the same purpose; and machines have been gradu¬ 
ally introduced to replace manual labor in different parts of 
the process of manufacture, until at length, in many large es¬ 
tablishments, hand-work'is dispensed with altogether. The 
French department of the exposition presented a number of 
very interesting examples of shoe-making machinery; and one 
house, that of Dupuis & Co. of Paris', illustrated the whole 
process of manufacture from the beginning to the end. Ma¬ 
chines for securing the soles by means of screws were also ex¬ 
hibited by Messrs. Lemercier, Brice, Cobourg, and others, dif¬ 
ferent in some of the details of their construction, but all per¬ 
forming their work with admirable rapidity. 
The machines exhibited by Dupuis & Co., formed a com¬ 
plete series, by the successive operation of which a pair of 
shoes could be produced from the raw material in from one to 
two hours. The leather is cut into shape by means of tools 
resembling punches. The thicknesses which are to form the 
soles are united with glue and compressed previously to being 
cut. They receive then the necessary concavity by powerful 
hydraulic pressure; and their surfaces are smoothed and hard¬ 
ened in still another machine. Sewing machines form all the 
necessary seams, binding, and, if necessary, ornamental stitch¬ 
ing of the upper leathers; and then the separate parts are 
