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CLASS VI.
REPORT ON MANUFACTURING MACHINES AND TOOLS.
[The figures after the Names (between parentheses) refer to the Exhibitors* Numbers and to the Pages in theOfficial Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue.]
Jury.
General J. V. Foncelet, Chairman^ France; Member of Institute , late Director of PolytechnicSchool, Sec.
Rev. It. "Willis, M.A., F.R.S., &c., Deputy Chairman and Reporter , Jacksonian Professor of Natural andExperimental Philosophy, Cambridge.
Professor Filirpo Corridi, Tuscany ; Director of the Technological Institute, Florence .
Luigi i>e Ckistoforis, Austria ; Vice-President of Chamber of Commerce, Milan; Member of theScientific Institute of Bologna.
Benjamin Fothergill, Manchester; Mechanical Engineer .
Charles GascoigneMaclea, Leeds; Mechanical Engineer .
Gltliiermf. Kofki:, Portugal; Mechanical Engineer .
John Penn, Greenwich ; Mechanical Engineer .
George Rennie, F.R.S., "Whitehall Place ; Mechanical Engineer .
T. R. Sewell, Carrington, near Nottingham; Lace Manufacturer.
Samuel Webber, United States ; Civil Engineer.
Professor "W. Wedding, Zollvercin ; Member of the Board of Trade and Commerce at Berlin.
Associates.
A. Barclay, Brewery, Park Street, Southwark; Brewer.
Robert Davison, 33 Mark Lane; Civil Engineer .
J. Mercer, F.C.S., Oakenshaw, near Accrington, Lancashire ; Calico Printer.
The Jury for “Manufacturing Machines” have in-spected the articles contained in that Class of the Exhibi-tion, and have to Report thereon as follows:—
They find it to contain a collection unparalleled fornumber, importance, ingenuity, beauty of execution, andevery quality by which the machines of the present dayare distinguished; but they desire carefully to guardagainst the supposition that every branch of manufac-turing mechanism is represented. On the contrary, greatinequality prevails in this respect; some manufacturingprocesses being abundantly and almost superfluouslyillustrated, others wholly omitted, and the remainder re-presented by very few specimens.
The textile processes in general, the preparation andspinning of cotton, fiax, wool, and silk, weaving in all itsbranches, are, for the most part, well illustrated by thepublic spirit of various exhibitors, who have not onlysent complete series of the respective machines, but alsomaintain them in motion, doing work, so that thesematerials are actually shown to the visitors in theirgradual progress from the raw state to the saleable product.13ut even in this division many machines are necessarilyomitted, especially if the nature of their work unfits it tobe carried on in the presence of a crowd of spectators.
Such are the preparatory washings and cleansings ofraw material; all kinds of fulling, calendering, dyeing,and the like, which either derive their sole interest fromprocesses that are accompanied by excessive noise, dust,disagreeable smells, splashing aud spilling of water andother liquids, or similar annoying phenomena ; or are ofsuch a nature as to occupy time, or demand more carethan can be bestowed in the presence of an assembly ofspectators; or which require peculiar conditions of tem-perature or other arrangements incompatible with a publicexhibition. Paper-making may be placed under this head,and consequently only a few of its models and machinesare exhibited; and those, at rest.
For completeness and value, the collection of machinetools for working metal and wood may take its place nextto the textile mechanism; and here may be seen speci-mens of nearly every one of the engines that have beenintroduced in the present century by our machine-makers,and by means of which the construction of the vast and
complicated machinery that now pervades ali classes ofindustrial occupations has been rendered possible. Butthe magnitude of the work usually executed by such en-gines—the steadiness of foundation which they require, andwhich is unattainable in this building—andotherconsidera-tions, appear to have prevented the exhibition of theiraction ; for although they are placed in the department ofmachines in motion, and some of them are actually keptin motion in part, no work is placed upon them. Forobvious reasons, all processes of working metal which re-quire heat are impracticable, and very few of the machineswhich belong to such are here to be found. Thus thereduction of metals from the ores to bars and sheets,and all founding or easting processes, are wholly unre-presented, as well as the curious and interesting opera-tions belonging to the glass and pottery manufactures.To these may be added machines which are so bulky orso easily deranged as not to justify, in the opinions oftheir owners, the risk and expense of removing them tothe Exhibition, or the sacrifice of the work which theyare producing in their own manufactories.
A great variety of printing presses will be found inthe collection, many of them maintained in constantaction ; also many mills for grinding and crushing vege-table products, with the cleansing and sifting apparatusconnected with them; but of course not exhibited inaction. Besides these, there are various miscellaneousmachines which will be indicated as we proceed. Enough,however, has been said to show that the present collectiondoes not represent the real extent to which machinery isemployed in the manufactures of this country, seeingthat, at all events, those machines are omitted which de-rive their sole interest from the processes with which theyare connected, and when these are of such a nature as toforbid their being carried on in the presence of anassemblage of spectators or in an ornamental building.It will be remarked that the greater part of the machineswhich are exhibited are sent by their makers and not bymanufacturers.
The above remarks are more especially directed to theBritish part of the Exhibition ; but they apply with stillgreater force to the foreign, in which the distance of therespective countries and the risk of damage to the me-