PLATE XXXIX.

FOUNTAIN IN IRON,

BY ANDllE OF PARIS.

This elegant object formed a conspicuous ornament in the last French Exposition, and attracted no lessadmiration in the Great Exhibition of all Nations. To both of these collections M. Andre contributed alsomany other productions, remarkable at once for good design, excellent modelling, and singularly clean casting.

Fortunately, the Reports on the successive Exhibitions of French Industry have preserved an interestingseries of facts in relation to those who took part in them; and it is from that of the year 1844 thatwe have gleaned many of the following particulars of the career of this highly-successful manufacturer.

M. Andre’s progress may be divided into two distinct periods. He commenced business as contractorfor the supply of pipes to the town of Paris . Possessing no establishments of his own, he procured theexecution of them by working sub-contractors in the furnaces of Champagne . Although at that timeunacquainted with the details of the founders’ art, he was enabled, by the exercise of activity and intelligence,to introduce the best system of moulding, which, besides ensuring perfect execution, led to great economy ofproduction. M. Andre was thus enabled to effect a reduction of price, which compelled his competitors toadopt his improved system. Thus, by his example, a remarkable service was rendered to foundries whichhad previously possessed only imperfect and costly processes. A still greater benefit was conferred onpurchasers, since it enabled them to procure finely-moulded iron castings on terms far lower than those towhich they had been previously accustomed.

Subsequently, in 1835, M. Andre established his extensive iron-works in the Val d’Osne. He has theredisplayed all the resources of his industrial capacity, and his foundry has acquired very great reputation;more especially since the year 1841. Undeterred by any consideration of expense, M. Andre introducedinto his works every improvement of which the value had been tested by experience. He set the examplein Champagne of economising heat, which would otherwise have been lost, and of which he availed himselfto procure a supply of motive power, to heat air, and to dry his moulds; and he may indeed be consideredas occupying the first rank among the iron-founders of Champagne .

When M. Andre began to produce fancy castings, balcony railings cost, at Paris , one franc the kilogramme;and pipes, forty-five centimes. In 1844 the former had fallen to forty or fifty centimes, and the latter totwenty-six or twenty-seven; a result which is mainly to be ascribed to his exertions. It is frequently thecase, in extending a market and reducing the price of a commodity, that the increased consumption leads toa deterioration of the article produced; but it has not been so with the works of M. Andre. By allyinghimself to the most skilful designers and the best modellers of the French metropolis, he has evinced, in theprosperity of his career, how valuable good taste may become as a commercial commodity. Fully appreciatingthe advantages of education, he has attached to his establishment in the Val d Osne a gi atuitous school, inwhich he provides the best instruction for his apprentices; and a savings -bank and benefit society also formpart of his establishment. Upwards of two hundred workmen are constantly employed in his atelier, andin busy times his manufactory may be regarded as giving employment to at least double that number.

The productions of M. Andre obtained for him a prize medal in silver in the Parisian Exhibition of 1839,