The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1907-06-06
WORLDS MACHINE MART.
1t is Situated in Down.
town New York.
ITS GROWTH is RAPID
Here All Kinds of Mining and Indus
trial Machinery Are Sold to Every
Country I'm the Globe-Enormous
Increase In the Business i'm the
Last Few Years.

Within five years New York has
doubled It's business In the sale of
mining and Industrial machinery and
is now the worlds greatest mart for
all the principal types of machinery
and tools.
The business is largely confined to
the district bounded by Fulton, West
and South streets and the Battery.
In the number of persons engaged
in office work these engineering
trades employ several hundred more
than are engaged In the downtown
| financial institutions, says the New
York Times.
The number of travelling sales
men and foreign agents who repre-
sent these machinery making corpor-
ations Is double that of all the men
and women employed In all the
banks of the metropolitan district.
So rapid has been the growth OF
these machinery trades that in two
twenty-five story Office buildings
near Trinity Church almost 80 per
cent. of the floor space has been
rented to machinery interests.
For number of years the most
important machinery corporations
have made net yearly increase in
output of 10 per cent. Several of
the electrial and steam engineering
companies have made a net average
last Eve years.
Several of the large corporations
make for all the world and are en-
gagged at the present time on con-
tracts for Asia, Africa, all European
countries, Australia and for all the
islands in the seas whereon mining
and agriculture are active. One Of
the great downtown corporations has
a $40, 100000 contract in the Vale
of Cashmere and S5,000,000 con-
tract in Japan. In all this house
has foreign contracts to the amount
of $35, 1000.
Another large firm, employing
more than 10000 hands and with
Offices in eighteen foreign countries,
is popularity known as the House of
All Nations, because among its engi-
neers and clerks are fluent speakers
of almost every language that is of
Importance in commerce. Chinese,
japanese, German, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian and theScandinav-
ian languages are spoken and written
at numbers of these offices.
Some time ago a merchant from
China in search of machinery for a
mill at his home told the head of
downtown machinery concern that he
was unable to express In English the
meaning of several Chinese words Ia
common use about his mill. The
President touched his bell and sum-
moned a highly trained and full
blooded Chinese mechanical engi-
neer, who soon demonstrated that
he knew much more about the oper-
alton of the type of mill than did the
owner himself
There are now in foreign lands
about five thousand engineers and
mechanics at work for downtown en-
gineering corporations. OF these up
ward of thousand are German-Am-
orleans and SpanishA mericans stat
ioned as resident agents in important
commercial cities and mining dis
tricts..
They represent corpoi ations which
are capitalized at almost two billion
dollars and which employ about
600, 900 hands, with plants in every
State in the Union, and whose stock
holders number almost million
citizens.