sportsmen, a meed of approbation that far exceeded any renown it could have acquired from the "medal" or "mention" of excellence.

The detonating material of Maynard's primer is in the form of little lozenges, each about one-sixth of an inch wide and one-thirtieth of an inch thick. These lozenges are enclosed between two narrow strips of strong paper, cemented together and rendered water-proof and incombustible. The single strip thus made is a little less than one-fourth of an inch wide, and contains four of these lozenges (each of which is a charge) in every inch of its length; the charges forming projections of their own shape on one side, leaving considerable and equal spaces between them; the other side of the strip being one flat surface.

One of these strips, containing fifty (or more or less) charges, is coiled up and placed in a magazine in the lock, where, by opening a lid, it can be inspected readily, and from whence it is fed out by the action of the lock, one charge being moved forward each time the hammer is raised. When the hammer descends it cuts off and fires the charge fed out upon the nut (or nipple, if one be used) of the gun, thus igniting the powder of the cartridge in the barrel.

These primers are made by a very simple machine, (also invented by Dr. Maynard,) capable of making a million a day, at about one-tenth the cost of the percussion caps heretofore used in the United States army and navy.

CONCLUSION.

A comprehensive view of the vast collection of objects in the great Exhibition is the great desideratum with all those persons who have read only of its marvels. Such a view it is not easy to give. Every report which has ever issued from that great storehouse of industry, whether from the royal commissioners, the foreign commissioners, the juries, or the executive committee, has dealt of details. It has almost necessarily done so, because through details alone could the mind create any picture of the vast edifice, and its contents, which should at all resemble the original. And yet a comprehensive view of the whole-so that, when the disposition and arrangement of the building have been mastered, a just conception may be formed of the whole display, the characteristic features of each part be distinguished, and definite ideas of the industrial attributes developed be stored in the mind-is what is most needed.

The

The industries of nearly all the nations of the globe were presented in Hyde Park. In those industries the national individuality was preserved. They became the most faithful mirror, in fact, of national character which could be exhibited. Other pictures may deceive, but the picture which the industrial products of a people present must be true. course of events, guided as it is by a higher power than man's, does not always illustrate the moral and social attributes of communities. Not so the fruits of labor-the quality and description of material which engross the toil, supply the demand, and engage the tastes and predilections of a people. These tell their tale as faithfully as the actions of an individual indicate his nature, and by them, rightly considered, the condition and progress of a community may be correctly judged.

The form of the Crystal Palace has been made familiar, by innumerable pictures, to the whole world In some respects it resembled a cathe

dral, its long avenues, stretching from east to west, being intersected midway by a transept. An equal division of space thus resulted, which was turned to account in the most appropriate manner. The western half was occupied by the industrial products of the British empire; the eastern by those from other countries. The question of precedence, not as between Great Britain and the world, but between all foreign rivals, was settled by a geographical solution. The transept was the equator. India, on the British side; China, Tunis, the Brazils, Persia, Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, on the foreign side, were grouped around it as the torrid zone.

This geographical plan was not, and indeed could not be carried out through the whole building; but it extended far enough to destroy all ideas of preference as to locality, and all feelings of jealousy arising therefrom. It harmonized, also, admirably with the character of the structure, and gave a symmetry and equipoise to the whole which would not otherwise have been attained.

As Great Britain occupied the greatest space-a space equal to all the rest of the world-she certainly deserves the first notice. Crossing the transept, the first compartments westward were occupied by the products of the British colonies. India-with its pottery, its inlaid ivory, its renowned textile fabric, its jewels and gold, surpassing the most finished productions of any European nation-contrasted strangely with India as the contributor of the rudest furniture, the most awkward machinery, the most uncouth household implements, and the most fitless mechanical tools of any country on the globe. And yet nothing could more correctly represent India as she is-uniting the highest skill with the most brutal ignorance, princely wealth with abject poverty, and luxury beyond description with want that seeks no higher end than the sustenance of a day. The Australian possessions, the Canadas, Nova Scotia, New Zealand, the British West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Malta, western Africa, the Channel islands, and all other parts of the world where the cross of St. George has been planted, were each represented by itself in its own peculiar products. In some were seen the evidences of barbaric pomp, belonging to the traditions of the past; in others the rudeness in design and material of all the useful arts; in others yet the trophies of ancient civilization and refinement, marvellously brought down to our own time; the fruits of labor upon the virgin soils of Australia and the Canadas, sent to be consumed in the mother country; the mineral, vegetable, and animal treasures, sought out by commerce and made valuable by manufactures; and the raw produce in various conditions, indicative of the struggle of infant communities towards a larger industrial development.

The colonies of Great Britain occupied, nevertheless, but a fractional part of her immense space in the Crystal Palace. It was from the United Kingdom that the great mass of her productions came. The comparative ease, freedom from expense, and direct benefit to be gained, which the British contributors enjoyed, furnished one great reason for the full representation of the industrial products of the country. But, with all these advantages, no person could witness the extent, variety, and excellence of the proceeds of British labor with which nearly onehalf of the immense fabric was crowded, and at the same time remember that each one of these myriads of articles was but a sample of vast pro

ducts daily issuing from loom, and furnace, and workshop, to fill the markets of the whole world, without astonishment and admiration. Her raw produce, filling one immense compartment, half the length of the whole building; her mining, quarrying, metallurgic, and mineral products, occupying the extreme south; her chemical and pharmaceutical products and processes-substances used as food, and vegetable, and animal substances used in manufactures-stored in the galleries; her pleasure carriages and railway and naval mechanism, arranged along the north; her civil and military enginery, on the west; her agricultural implements, occupying an immense ground area parallel with her minerals; her philosophical, musical, surgical, and horological instruments, and the processes depending upon their use, handsomely arranged in the galleries near the nave; her display of manufacturing products, comprising nineteen sections, arranged on either side of the central avenue above and below-cotton woven fabrics, fabrics woven of mixed materials, leather, furniture, hardware, cutlery, furs, and paper, occupying principally positions on the ground floor; and silks, velvets, shawls, carpets, floor-cloths, clothing, jewelry, glass, ceramic manufactures, and earthenwares placed in the galleries of the nave; her fine arts, crowding the sculpture court, and scattered throughout the building; and her manufacturing machines and tools moved by steam, plying their multiplex labor in one immense and separate compartment-showed what must be that vast and complicated system which supplies the materials to feed her swarming millions, which maintains her commercial credit, and enables her to pay the interest of a debt which would overwhelm most nations of the world.

The genius of Great Britain is mechanism. More than in any country on the globe, mechanism is there extending its dominion over the whole empire of labor. In textile fabrics, in fashioning iron like wood to the most exact proportions, in working the printing press and navigating the ocean, in all agricultural pursuits everywhere, in everything lightening the burden of toil and rescuing human life from dangerous pursuits, nechanism reigns supreme. Beyond this the genius of Great Britain has not gone. Ornament in all her productions is inseparably wedded to usefulness. The creation of the beautiful with her artisans rests only in the adaptability of mechanism. It is said that a better and purer style of national industry is beginning to be observable in England; but however this may be, her best productions, when placed beside similar productions from the continent, show violation of harmony in color and design, and evidences of neglected taste, to the most casual observer. But in mechanism, in its highest and noblest ends, in its tendencies to relieve labor of its drudgery, and to delegate to iron, to steam, and to other powers of the inanimate world the burden of toil, Great Britain must be acknowledged to be in advance of all the world.

Crossing the transept, in the centre of which the crystal fountain glit tered in light, China, Tunis, Egypt, and central and southern American tropical countries, first spread out before the spectator their various productions. The collection of Chinese manufactures bore that peculiar impress of which no article from the "flowery land" is ever divested. The porcelain from the great works of the Pozang Lake, the chemical preparations, recalling the historical fact of the early development of chemical knowledge among its inhabitants, the edible birds' nests, the

porcelain jars and vases, the lanterns, screens, and elaborate carvings, the lacquered and japan ware, and other articles long known to travellers, but which recent commercial intercourse has brought into the world, were all stamped with those features, which, like the physiognomy of its inhabitants, are recognised as soon as seen.

The peculiar industrial products of Persia were brought together in sufficient numbers to convey a somewhat adequate conception of the direction given to their activities. Particularly did the embroideries, rugs, and carpets give a true test of the prevalence of those principles of chromatic selection which influence the inhabitants of sunny climates. The character of these articles, too, like those from China, can never be mistaken; the ornament, with its tastefulness, ever displaying that peculiarity of arrangement and design which immediately leads to the recognition of its Eastern origin. Leaving these and all the miscellaneous objects connected with Eastern luxuries, passing by, also, however curious in themselves, as too small for notice in a mere general view, the feathered flowers of Brazilian industry, the vegetable wax and candles from St. Domingo, the mineral wealth of Chili, and the mats, head dresses, bark cloth, and Indian vases, presented by her Majesty, Pomare, Queen of the Society islands, let us stop for a moment before the large collection of Tunisian productions, sent by one exhibitor only, in the person of the Bey, his highness Mushir Basha.

The space allotted to Tunis was fitted up with counters and stalls, after the manner of a series of native shops. In the centre was pitched the hair tent of a Bedouin Arab. On the walls hung the gay caparison of his horse and the holyday attire of his wives. Heavy carpets covered the floor, and skins of the leopard and lion made the lounges and beds. Here were the leaves of the famed henna, the figs, raisins, and dates, the saffron and indigo, the cloaks and joubas, with their oriental characteristics, and the fez caps, with their brilliant dyes. This whole division formed a true and highly picturesque representation of the industrial condition of Tunis, itself a kind of trophy of ancient civilization, marvellously brought down to the present day.

The products of Egypt, presided over by Captain Abdel Hamia, himself the most curious production of all, presented, not an extensive, but a complete and interesting collection. The beautiful cottons, linens, and silks of the native looms, the Damascus swords, the dried and preserved fruits, the rice, wheat, Indian corn, barley, beans, and lentils of this wonderfully fertile country, and the rude domestic implements, in contrast with the beautiful specimens of embroidery and textile art, show the industrial condition of a people preserved through centuries without change or progress.

Of Greek exhibitors, inclusive of the Greek government, there were thirty-five in number. The articles they exhibited indicate the existence of various sources of wealth, which appear only to await a vigorous application of the means of industrial progress to become productive. The vegetable products shown included valonia, madder, currants, raisins, and tobacco; the mineral, those marbles which, wrought by ancient art, have formed the admiration of every time and people; and the animal, a jar of Hymettian honey, linked with classical associations. But the products of Greece at this day, like her people, bear the lineanents of degeneracy.

Perhaps no portion of the Exhibition attracted more general attention than that which was occupied by Turkey. To the more stupidly curious visitors, the luxurious furniture and gorgeous trappings which she displayed were objects of unceasing admiration; while to intelligent observers, the evidences which were to be seen, amid the barbaric splendor of her manufactures, of a genius struggling for freedom, enlisted a kind and degree of sympathy unlike what was manifested for any other nation. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the Sultan for his endeavors to revive the manufactures which once existed, and by the introduction, at his own cost, of new machinery, to give a fresh impetus to the industry of his country. The surest basis of her future progress, however, is to be found in the enlarged education she is giving to her young men. Her means of instruction at home are rivalling those which the best schools of Germany and England confer, and added to these she sends a large deputation from among the most promising sons of her chief citizens abroad every year; not to acquire the arts of ship-building and civil engineering alone, but to become conversant with the views of men of sound practical opinions on all important subjects. In embroidery and articles of gorgeous work, Turkey has long stood pre-eminent among oriental nations; but she seems to be aware that the day has arrived when a display of mere magnificence is no longer accounted the test of wealth or greatness. In proof of this, she produced at the Exhibition broad cloths, equal to the best English; cotton fabrics and silk piece goods, little inferior to the French; and reeled raw silks, unsurpassed by the best Italian. The high cost of these shows, indeed, that her improved manufactures are but in their infancy; but it also shows that the country possessing the greatest natural resources of any country in Europe has started in that race where indomitable determination— the strongest characteristic of the Mussulman-is the sure guarantee of

success.

Arrived at nearly the same point in her retrogression from industrial independence that Turkey has reached in her advance towards it, Spain exhibited in her compartments the melancholy evidences of decadence from greatness. She who once ruled a dominion as wide as Britannia, to whom argosies came laden with the spoils of the Old World and New, who held the Netherlands by her armies, in spite of Louis XIV., and sent her armada, styled invincible, to chastise England, upon the great arena of industrial competition in the nineteenth century, held the place of but a third-rate power. A few sword blades from the oldest forges in Europe, a few beautiful silk fabrics from the once-renowned works of Talavera, a few samples of common cloths from Segovia, an imperfect representation of the manufactures of hemp and flax, specimens of cordage and sail cloths, and an indifferent collection of grains, marbles, metals, and earths, constituted the main portion of the products from the peninsula.

Not unlike Spain in the meagre display of textile fabrics, but surpassing her in the show of raw materials and produce, Portugal held also but an inferior position in the great Exhibition. There were, however, fine carvings in ivory, indicative of much skill in execution, a few interesting works in the precious metals, and the great oil jar from Alentejo, to draw attention to the small division she occupied.