The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-06-12
THE GREAT EXHIBITION.
Americas Part in the Worlds
Fair at Paris.
The United States Imposing Ex'
hibit in Machinery Palace.

The Machinery Palace Of the Paris Exposi-
lion is the largest building ever constructed
under single roof. A remarkable feature
of the building is that the roof has no interior
support, except twenty great arches, hinged
at the foundation plates and apex so as to pro-
vide for expansion and contraction
under changes in the temperature:
panels are decorated with hera!dc
designs. The ends Of the building are fIed
with toned glass. Light is abundant ana She
effect of the decoration is magnificent: Inc
length Of Ithe building is nearly 14OO feet, IT'S
width $40 feet, and its height 17O feet. A GAL
lery thirty feet from the floor extends the en-
tire length on both sides. At the tour corners
aresteam generators for driving the entIe ma
chinery. The power is communicated oy
shafting placed on four rows of trelis Orders
living parallel with the length Of the building
and placed in subways. The engines are now
working and there is more power than is re-
uuired. An idea Of the colossal character OF
the exhibition may be gained from the fact
that the power available this year is four
times as great as that furnished during the
exhibition Of 1878.
The American machinery exhibit occupied
one-third of the entire space in this bulldlng,
and is, in all respects but one, more imposing
than the exhibit at any previous international
exhibition. The exception is in agricultural
machinery, in which we do not show progress
corresponding to that manifested in other
lines. We are, indeed. at double disadvantage
in this, for beside exhibiting nothing notably
new. European nations have been successfully
oyertakine us in the production Of our own
machines. This is especially true OF Great
Britain, France, Germany, Austria ana
Switzerland. In this respect, as in others OF
equal Importance, we have suppIea SuISEPe lSPe
Cyrus Mccormick failed to secure In tne
United States the adoption of his .agrlcul-
tnral machinery until after its ex-
hibition in London in 1851. That
international exhibition inauglrated a
new era in machinery. In 1867 Thomas K
Pickering. engineer and inventor, who has
been superintendent of machinery Ior the
United States at the successive eXhloltlonSa at
Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia, Melbourne and
New Orleans, brought about the exhibition OF
one fifty horse power Corliss engine IN TINS
city. This engine was sold to a Frenchman.
To-day. if no American machinery occu-
pied the space allotted to the United States,
The entire area could be filled with the modl-
fications of the Corliss engine manufactured
bv Europeans. Two-thirds of the steam
engines exhibited are of the Corliss pattern.
III 1867 there wns an exhibit OF ma.
chine tools by Brown & Sharp, of
Providence. They were all sold: To-day
tools made after the Brown & Shalp pat
terms by Europeans are universai IN tne eH.
hibition. When the model Of the yacht
America was shown in the United States
II was rather scoffed at. Its superiority was
promptly detected by British builders, and it
is now becoming model on the Clyde.
A Baldwin gas engine, built by Otis
Brothers, attracts attention by employing
gas to rln q dynamo for the purpose OF hight
ing by means of incandescent lamps, the
claim being that the light thus produced Is
Swazey, of Cleveland, and William Sellers &
Co. Of Philadelphia, are conspicuous
by their exhibits of brass-Workng
machinery. "Printing-house Square" In the
American exhibit will run with electric pow
er supplied by Pickering for the special &C.
cou1rnoiation of the presses which are not
easily connected with the shaftlng.
Neither Scott nor Hoe has any eS-
hibit but the plant, when ready,
will be considerable. The Campbell and the
Golden Companies exhibits are the most i'm
portant. Several typesetting machines are
exhibited, including the Macmillan, the
Thorne. and Mergenthaler linotype machine.
The last named presents the most striking
features. as it does away with movable
The Edison exhibit occupies one-half the en-
tire American frontage, covering 9OO square
feet. It is the largest single exhibit in the ex-
position. tits devised to illustrate Ii mlnia-
ture most of the great practical merits OF Mr.
Edison,s inventions. For instance, the lighting
of New York city is shownby subways visible
in the flooring, with charts and apparatus
indicating the distribution of lamps and the
control Of force. His entire category OF In
;ventions, numbering 493, is presented either
completely or by Intelligent suggestion. 1t
comprises his contributions to telegraphy,
electric lighting, system of meters, dyna-
mos, motors transmission Of power, railway
ielectro-motors, telephone receivers and
:transmitters, and galvanic and secondary
batteries as used in the monographs and
milling machines, the electric pen, type
writer, shafting g, the vocal engine
land fruit preserving. The pho
:nograph and the American writing ma
chimes are the popular delight of the expo
isition. Among the less imposing, but
not less ingenious, machines, which
ARE looked upon as Yankee no
Itions by Europeans, are machines
for sailing and coloring butter, which is
matched bya French machine for desalting
and automatic weighing; an automatic
American machine for making corkscrews
out of wire, machine for weaving the cover
ing on rubber hose, and a borbon machine.