The Express.
London, England, 1862-05-01 00:00:00

Ramsbottom's self-feeding tender, to supply water
to express engines without stopping, and several
smoke-consuming locomotives.
The pile carpet and worsted looms will excite
general interest in Class seven (a) • and in Class
seven (b) there are many new varieties of steam-
hammers, variations upon Mr. J. Nasmyth's ori-
ginal plan. Amongst others is an irtereating "steam
smith," or radial hammer, exhibited by Messrs.
Neilson and Co., of Glasgow.
In Clam eight, amongst the marine engines,
parts of Messrs. Penn's large engines !made for the
Achilles (a sister ship to the Warrior), with a crank
shaft weighing seventeen tons, are worthy of special
notice. Several important varieties of traction
engines are exhibited, made to run on common
roads ; and the washing and mangling machines
will surely not be despised, when we know that the
annual washing bill of the United Kingdom is now
estimated at six millions sterling.
Besides making arrangements for showing ma-
chinery in motion, and illustrating it by processes,
her Majesty's commissioners reserved space for the
exhibition of manufacturing processes in certain
handicrafts which could be carried on without
danger to the building. The result is that visitors
will see illustrations of the following processes :
Needle making, medal striking, gold chain making,
type casting, type printing by hand, lithographic
printing, copper-plate printing, a potter's wheel,
brick and drain-tile making, and wood carving.
The display of agricultural implements in Class ,
hi nine—which placed in the long covered and un-
covered eastern annexe—is under the management
of Mr. Brandreth Gibbs, and is substantially the
annual exhibition of the Royal Agricultural So-
ciety. The shows of this society have led to such
improvements in the design and manufacture of
agricultural implements that a large export trade
has been created in this branch of industry, which
figures prominently in the government returns.
In horticultural exhibitions $ progress even more
rapid has been shown. Not only have they led to
improvements in the culture of native, and the
naturalisation of foreign plants, but they have
taken botany out of its abstract existence in books
and pictures, and have placed it practically before
the eyes of the public, to aid in a useful, beautiful,
of
and what is gradually becoming a necessary part
education. The annual displays at Chiswick have
been the creators of the Botanic Gardens in the
Regent's-park and of the Royal Horticultural
Society ; and the display of fruits and flowers in
the gardens of this society, attached to the inter-
national building, will doubtless form one of the
most attractive features of the Exhibition.
In the Agricultural section gardening and fanning
are jointly represented ; and the collection of im-
plements and models includes horticultural build-
ings, wire netting, fencing, and gardening ap-

pa-ratus.
During the last twenty years great improvements
have been made in the construction of agricultural
machinery and implements. Before that period a
large proportion of the implements of the farm were
the production of the village blacksmith ; regular
implement manufacturers were but few, and the
want of railway communication prevented the
better class of the machines then made being
extensively used beyond the immediate neighbour-
hood in which they were constructed. Of late
years, however, vast strides have been made, and
the wants of agriculture are now provided with
machinery which, for its ingenuity and excellence
of workmanship, will bear favourable comparison
with any other branches of our national industry.
Classes eleven and twelve—military engineering,
armour and accoutrements, ordnance and small
arms, and naval architecture and ships' tackle—
are under the superintendence of Major Moffatt.
In the first of these classes—under Sub-Class a—
there is a praiseworthy contrivance in the applica-
tion of the study of the centre of gravity to the
suspension of soldiers' belts and ammunition.
There are also many specimens of improved
cartouch boxes, &c.
In Sub-Class c may be studied an extensive
range of every engine of destruction which the
human mind has yet devised, from swords to great
guns, from the old Brown Bess—more praiseworthy
for carrying the queen of British weapons at
its muzzle than for its accuracy of aim with the
projectileof that date--down to our death-dealing,
repeating weapons, our breech-loading arms, and
our long-range rifles.
Amongst the more formidable engines of destruc-
tion are the Armstrong and Whitworth one-hundred
pounders, Blakeley's five-hundred pounders, and
the Mersey. Steel Company's six-hundred pounder.
As to their respective merits, the visitors must
judge for themselves, for the opinions of scientific
men on this head are divided.
The trophy of great guns by Mr. Anderson, of
the Royal Carriage Department, will at once
attract the close scrutiny of the scientific, being a
development of the process of construction of the
great Armstrong gun, with a microscopic lens ar-