The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-09-11
TEirty-uinth Annual Fur of the American
Institute.


Institute.
The progress of American industry is so
rapid that annual fairs have become indis-
pensable for the exhibition of the continually
multiplying applications of science and art to
the purposes Of modern civilized life. The
International expositions of Europe, occurring
once in ten years, would not suffice to show
the numberless improvements that the
inventive genius Of Americans are
all the time introducing in the machines
and processes by which the forces of
nature can be utilized. The visitor to the
thirty-ninth annual fair of the American
Institute will be amply repaid for the long
journey which he must make to reach the
Skating Rink on Third avenue, between
Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth streets. More
than thousand persons have applied for ad-
mission as exhibitors, and every branch of
useful art is well illustrated. The depart
ment of heavy machinery is not yet COM
pletely organized, but it already promises to
be the most important part Of the exhibition.
The Allen engine, with one hundred and
twenty-five horse power, high speed, variable
cut of, positive valve movements and equi-
librium valves; Greenes upright balance
engine, with inverted beam; Bakers vertical
engine, with cylinder and boiler combined;
Bacons upright trunk hosting engine; Riders
vertical caloric and steam engines Woods
portable engine, and Harris rotary
engine, are among the chief aitgac-
Lions Of the machinery department,
which offers, moreover, fiue display of steam
pumps. saws, planers, drills, lathes and other
machines for working wood and metal.
Matthews colossal soda water fountain, con-
structed of marble and silver, twenty feet high,
with twenty-four arms, supplying forty-eight
kinds of syrup, lighted with sixteen gas jets,
and costing eight thousand dollars, is conspic-
nous in the centre of the vast hall. Fancy
glass manufacture, ingenious shell work, con-
juring trick toys, cooking ranges, magic Ian
terms and optical instruments, adjustable mir
rors, circular saws and finely polished tools,
marbleized slate mantels, knitting machines,
elastic sponge upholstery, stoves, furniture,
artificial teeth, hats and furs, glass and silver
ware, cutlery, in fine almost everything that
contributes to the necessities of American life,
is sspecimened" at this fair.
tits an encouraging aign of the times that
the directors Of the fair have devoted its tsFisk
Department to ''the fine arts and education. J"
Even in this utilitarian age and country fine
arts and education thus take honorable prece-
dence. Assuredly it is well that even Colonel
Woodward's brilliant display of firearms, in
needle gun, the Remington and Winchester
rifles, several American needle guns and the
Gatling battery gun, should be assigned to o
lower class than the instruments which
minister to taste and intellectual culture.
Weapons of destruction must not outrank
organs aud pianos and musical clocks, or
the latest and most perfect developments Of
photography. The Photographic exhibition is
one of the most complete that has ever been
made in New York. Kurtz, Quincy, Howell,
Bogardus and other eminent photographers
have sent the finest specimens of their work.
Kurtz holds the unquestionably first rank
which his Rembrandt effects won for his
photographs at the recent Paris Exposition.
Both Kurtz and Howell have availed them
selves of the aid Of thoroughly educated
artists in perfecting their portraits. Thanks
to the skill and delicacy with which Theodore
WHIST has worked up the portraits of the for
mer, and Lie Vasseur those of the latter, their
colored photographs and their photographs
finished in India ink are undeniable MASTER
pieces. Nothing of the kind is superior to the
India ink portraits Of LIE Vasseur. Gurneys
portrait of Booth, in the character of Hamlet,
is superb. Prang has sent to the fair several
Of his best specimens Of chromo-lithography
In short, the fine as well as the useful arts are
favorably represented at the thirty-ninth an
nual fair of the American Institute.
All Gone.