EXPOSITION OF 1867. 
891 
during which time the anatomical piece is preserved by being 
saturated with the ether until ready for the next step, which 
consists in driving out the ether by injecting a concentrated so¬ 
lution of tannin in boiling water, having first expelled the 
ether by an injection of distilled water. Dessication, the only 
remaining process, is ingeniously effected by placing the body 
or portion to be preserved in a vessel with a double bottom, 
the space between the two walls being filled with boiling water 
by means of a system of tubes with cocks. Finalh^, hot air, 
compressed to two atmospheres, and forced through a vessel con¬ 
taining chloride of lime, to deprive it of all moisture, is driven 
through all the vessels and excretory ducts, to the expulsion of 
whatever they contain, and the whole process is finished. 
The specimen of anatomy thus treated retains its original 
volume, with the normal relation of all its parts—the liquids 
alone not being present—and has, moreover, a lightness, flexi¬ 
bility and naturalness of appearance unapproached by any of 
the imitations that art has yet produced. Indeed, except that 
it has these qualities of natural softness and of more than 
natural lightness, it is precisely as if it had been suddenly 
congealed. 
The collection of Dr. Brunetti, comprised sixty distinct 
pieces, representing various portions of the human body, some 
normal and some pathological, and constituted not only one 
of the most interesting features of the Italian department, but 
one of the most intensely interesting exhibits in the Palace of 
Exposition. 
PROGRESS OF THE MECHANIC ARTS.'^ 
This title opens a boundless field, and one of the very first 
importance, since every other department of industry looks 
to the mechanical inventor for the means of its own advance¬ 
ment. But for the steam-engine, the cotton-gin, the spinning- 
jenny, the power-loom and the power press, the most enlight¬ 
ened nations of the earth would have been still in the twilight 
of a semi-civilization. It is here that a single happy thought. 
♦ The term Mechanic Arts is here used in its restricted sense. 
