The Book of the Fair - Chapter 12



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Chapter the Twelfth:
Machinery

South of the Administration building, fronting 350 feet on the main 
avenue, and with a depth of 500 feet, is the Palace of Mechanic Arts, or 
as it is more commonly termed Machinery Hall, covering, with its annex, 
more than seventeen acres. While less than one third the size of the 
Manufactures building, this edifice, apart from its annex, has more than 
double the dimensions of the national capitol, or of the parliament houses 
at Westminster. The three main interior divisions resemble somewhat as 
many railroad sheds placed side by side, each with a conical roof 100 feet 
in height, supported by arched trusses 50 feet apart. Around this triple 
hall is a gallery 50 feet wide, and through its centre runs a transept, 
130 feet in width. The internal arrangement is admirably suited to the 
purpose, with a structural design so simple as in a measure to dispel the 
sense of perplexity caused by a vast display of machinery in motion. 

For a building intended for such purposes the foundations must be 
especially solid. To support the machinery the heaviest and most massive 
substructures were laid at brief intervals, each of the iron trusses that 
support the roof resting on huge wooden blocks placed cross-wise, bolted, 
and supported by poles. The entire edifice rests on a foundation of 
planking and trestle work, its frame being mainly of wood, while the 
trusses are of such width that, after serving the purpose for which they 
were fashioned, they may be used in the construction of railroad sheds. 

How to give to this prosaic structure an exterior design in keeping with 
the remainder of the group that surrounds the great quadrangle, to impart 
to an edifice devoted to the genius of materialism an air of beauty and 
harmony befitting its environment, was one of the many problems which 
confronted its architects - the Boston firm of Peabody and Stearns. First 
of all, the curtain-walls were encircled with two-storied porticos and 
with Corinthian colonnades, forming covered walks around the four sides. 
At the corners pavilions were formed, each 50 feet square, in the interior 
of which were placed large double stairways inclosed by columns supporting 
an interior dome. Above this is a large exterior dome, resting on a 
circular podium, and at its top a lantern. In the centre the main facades 
are broken by a plain wall surface, carried to a greater height, and 
finished with a level cornice. On either side of this surface are towers, 
also accessible by staircases, and above them turrets built in stories and 
of octagonal shape, each of the topmost stories being almost spiral in 
shape, and crowning a loftier monument than that on Bunker Hill. Between 
the towers are intermediate pavilions, the one facing the main court 

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containing a portico with semi-circular entrance way of the Corinthian 
order, crowned with a low half-dome, and with a statue over each of the 
columns. 

Says one of the artificers of the Fair, in commenting on the design: "The 
long level sky-lines of these great facades, thus broadly accentuated at 
the corners by domes, and in the centre by the aspiring lines of twin 
towers nearly 200 feet high, were devised to form an engrossing foreground 
to the long higher roofs of the triple naves behind, broken by masses of 
decorative skylights and by the three low conical roofs of the main 
central transept. On the shorter front these naves present their glazed 
circular ends behind and above the facade in the manner used in the great 
Roman baths. In this way every principal feature of the main structure is 
made to play a noble and expressive part in the decorative scheme. The 
details of this design have been kept in rigid conformity with classical 
and scholarly traditions, relieved in parts by motives suggested by the 
highly ornate renaissance of Spain. Enriched profusely with sculpture and 
emblematic statues, and with effects of decorative color behind the open 
screen of the porticos, this composition, if it does not succeed in 
revealing the mysterious relationships between machinery and art, may at 
least stand as a beautiful model of highly organized academic design 
devoted to modern uses." 

Over the eastern doorway Columbia sits enthroned, in her right hand a 
sword, and in her left the olive branch of peace. Near her stands Honor, 
holding a laurel wreath, and from the steps of the throne Wealth is 
scattering flowers and fruits from a horn of plenty. On either side 
inventors and mechanics are submitting their work to judges selected from 
many nations. At the corners of the main pediment are lions, typical of 
brute force, subdued by two young children, symbolic of human genius. 
Above them is a group representing Science and the Four elements, this 
being repeated over the northern entrance way, and beneath it, figures 
bearing escutcheons, on which are portraits of prominent inventors. 

To the visitor whose tastes incline to mechanics the Machinery department 
is one of the most attractive features of the Exposition. That both as to 
size and quality the display is worthy of the occasion we have sufficient 
evidence in its many acres of exhibiting space, covered with specimens 
culled from old and new world centres of industry, the American 
manufacturer vying with the European, and each country striving to 
demonstrate that its artificers are among the foremost of their craft. 

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In 79 groups and nearly 200 classes of exhibits is here represented almost 
every mechanical device fashioned by the ingenuity of man. There is 
machinery for the transmission of power, whether by electric, steam, 
hydraulic, or pneumatic apparatus; there are machinery and appliances for 
the manufacture of textile fabrics, for the preparation of various 
articles of food; for type-setting, printing, binding, stamping, 
embossing, and other branches of book and newspaper work; there are 
machines, apparatus, and tools for lithography, color printing, photo-
mechanical and other mechanical processes of illustrating; for working 
metals, minerals, and woods. Finally there is a collection of fire engines 
and fire extinguishing appliances, whether by water or chemical apparatus, 
with machines and implements for many miscellaneous purposes, from shaping 
the head of a pin or the eye of a needle to the construction of a watch. 

In the sections occupied by the United States is a complete illustration 
of the inventive skill of her mechanics, who within the last half century 
have revolutionized many branches of industry, and created many new ones. 
In all these inventions the tendency has been to increase the quantity and 
improve the quality of products, while dispensing as far as possible with 
manual labor and rendering processes more and more automatic. Thus it is 
that the value of production per capita of the operatives employed has 
more than doubled within forty years, and even within the last decade 
shows a considerable addition. Thus has been accomplished not only without 
detriment, but with material benefit to the wage-worker, whose average 
earnings have increased more than forty percent since 1850, and with a 
three or four-fold gain in the number employed. 

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Of the twenty or more branches of manufacture whose output exceeds $10,000,
000, by far the largest is that of iron and steel, the value of which, 
including the unwrought metal and the machinery and apparatus into which 
it is made or partly made, is probably not less than $1,200,000,000. Of 
this amount perhaps $400,000,000 represents the value of iron and steel, 
$500,000,000 of machinery and manufactures, and the remainder that of 
railroad tracks, rolling stock, and agricultural and other implements and 
appliances constructed partially of steel or iron. Under the stimulus 
imparted by improved machinery, whereby many articles are produced at 
little more than in former years would have been the cost of the raw 
material, the total value of all manufactures has increased more than 
seven-fold within two-score of years, affording employment or support to 
about one-fourth of the entire population of the United States. Such is 
the good work that machinery has wrought, since, in the later colonial 
period, it ceased to be regarded as a special invention of the devil, 
since the days for instance when Thomas Barnard preached before a Boston 
society for the encouragement of industry his "manufactory sermon," 
declaring that "an industrious prosecution of the arts of civil life was 
very friendly to virtue," and urging his people to make such progress in 
manufacturers as would enable them to produce at home what they imported 
from foreign lands. 

Along the southern wall of Machinery Hall extend two corrugated iron 
structures, in which is generated most of the power whereby the buildings 
and grounds and the great fountain in the central court are supplied with 
electricity, the power that runs the Administration elevators, furnishes 
exhibitors with motive force, drives the sewage of the Fair toward the 
lake, and sets in motion some of the machinery in the hall itself. This 
primary power plant, known as the boiler-house, is adjacent to the main 
building, the smaller section, on the other side of the southern entrance 
way, being called the boiler-house extension. Adjoining these and 
contained within the main hall and its annex are the 70 engines and 130 
dynamos which complete the plant, one fully in keeping with the colossal 
proportions of the Exposition, and aptly termed the heart of the Fair. Of 
the 26,000 horse-power developed by its 54 boilers, fully two-thirds is 
transmitted to the engines and dynamos which generate electricity. 

Passing along the galleries of the boiler-houses, on a level with the 
floor of Machinery Hall and a few feet above the line of great furnaces, 
the visitor may notice that the stokers are attired in neat white 
uniforms, very unlike the begrimed and grease-stained garments 
characteristic of the craft. This is explained by the use of oil as fuel, 
conveyed in the Standard company's pipes from Whiting, Indiana, some forty 
miles distant. 

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The oil is stored in iron tanks, enclosed in a massive brick vault in the 
south-eastern portion of the grounds, and with a total capacity of 112,000 
gallons. This subterranean reservoir is in six compartments, each twice 
the size of the tanks, and thus is avoided or minimized the danger of 
explosion, should the grounds be swept by fire. Near by is the pumphouse, 
from which, at a distance of more than half a mile, the oil is delivered 
as needed at the stand-pipe near the boilerhouse. Each of the two pumps is 
furnished with a suction connection, by which, in case of accident at the 
boiler-house, the contents of the pipe may be returned to the storage 
tanks. The main lines of supply-pipes are enclosed in a heavy wooden box, 
covered by removable cast iron plates, with branches leading to the 
boilers which furnish power for the several groups of engines, presently 
to be described. 

The boilers are all of the water tube type, which in brief consists of a 
bank of tubes a few inches in diameter, and a dozen feet long, inclined 
upward, and connected with a large steam drum or reservoir. The tubes are 
expanded at either end, and the entire apparatus is filled with water up 
to about the middle of the drum. As the steam is generated by the flames 
beneath, it passes from each pair or battery of boilers into one common 
pipe, which delivers it in turn to the headers, or reservoirs, located 
under the gallery floor. The water is then drained from the headers, and 
returned to the boilers for further use by a separate system of pipes. To 
boilers of this pattern it is claimed that even an explosion causes but 
little damage, since the enormous power which they generate is distributed 
between eleven or twelve thousand tubes. 

Arranged with reference to the uses for which they are intended, the group 
of electrical engines is by far the most remarkable. The largest in this 
class is the quadruple expansion condensing engine, exhibited by Allis and 
company, of Milwaukee, and used in the operation of two dynamos with an 
aggregate capacity of 20,000 incandescent lights. With perhaps one 
exception, the entire mechanism constitutes the largest single electric-
light plant in the world, and there is no stationary engine of greater 
size in existence. The engine itself is of 2,000 horsepower, and as to its 
dimensions, it may here be stated that the fly-wheel is 30 feet in 
diameter, length of shaft 17 feet, diameter of largest cylinder nearly 6 
feet, and that it occupies some 3,000 square feet of floor space. Near the 
railing which encloses it are two faded yellow documents, framed and under 
cover. One of them is the original contract awarded in 1796 to the firm of 
Boulton and Watt for the 

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construction of a steam engine for the Birmingham Flour and Bread company, 
and attached to it is a schedule of some of the materials to be used. 

The largest collection of engines in Machinery Hall, or elsewhere in the 
Exposition, is that of the Westinghouse company, of New York, which alone 
has thirteen specimens of its workmanship, with an aggregate of more than 
7,400 horse-power. It is worthy of note that among all the engine builders 
of the New England states, only two Rhode Island firms are represented, 
the middle and western states furnishing the bulk of the display. Among 
the more attractive exhibits is a small nickel-plated engine of Iowa 
manufacture, of cunning workmanship and perfect finish. 

Compared with the engines which furnish electric power, and which in turn 
derive their motive force from the boiler plant, those that supply steam 
power or compressed air are of minor importance, the latter being mainly 
used by the elevators and certain of the locomotives in the Transportation 
building. Few of the mechanisms in motion within the hall derive their 
power from the regular plant, the main use of which is, as I have said, 
the generation of electricity, conveyed by underground wires to every 
portion of the grounds. Some fifteen engines, scattered through the 
building and acting independently of the power plant proper, drive six 
lines of iron shafts, each extending for a distance of 1200 feet along the 
main structure and its annex. By these shafts, revolving eighteen feet 
above the floor, power is furnished to exhibitors by merely throwing a 
belt over the one nearest to their allotted space. Engines of British and 
German make drive the machinery in their sections, and for the same 
purpose the United States division has several of home manufacture. 

By several manufacturing companies are special exhibits of their 
appliances for the transmission of power, one firm using manilla rope, 
another, cow-hide, and a third, a stout duck fabric, in place of leather 
belting. But on all sides is the regulation shafting and belting, a New 
Hampshire company producing what is claimed to be the largest belt in the 
world, 

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more than 200 feet long, by eight and a half in width. It is fashioned in 
three-ply, oak-tanned, weighs 5,176 pounds, and in its construction there 
were used 569 hides. 

Hoisting engines of all descriptions are classed with motors and apparatus 
for the transmission of power. Perhaps the most remarkable of this group 
are the traveling cranes, operated by electricity, three of them in 
Machinery Hall, and one in the machine-shop south of the annex. The latter 
can haul a weight of from ten to fourteen tons, swing its load aloft, and 
raise or lower it, all without jar, and with scarcely a tremor. Its 
motions are readily guided by a single workman, or even by an intelligent 
boy. The other cranes are of mammoth proportions, as in truth they must 
be, for during the installation process they placed in position all the 
more massive machinery. Their present use is to carry passengers to and 
fro, for which purpose they are suitably equipped. Each of them has a span 
of 75 feet, the tracks being laid on plate girders, and supported by steel 
columns about twenty feet high. The supporting structures are designed for 
a load of more than forty tons for each end of the crane, which travels at 
the rate of some 300 feet a minute. At the western end of the annex is a 
balcony, reached by several elevators, the latter forming of themselves an 
exhibit by the Crane company. 

In the line of hoisting machines the United States has the only display. 
Some of the engines are especially used in building, the cranks being so 
constructed that a heavy load can be raised or lowered with remarkable 
smoothness and rapidity. Others, designed for bridge construction, are so 
fashioned that all friction may be avoided. Quarrymen may also inspect the 
engines or models best adapted for their work, some of them having masts 
and booms by which a weight of ten or twelve tons may be readily lifted 
and moved in a straight or circular line. Many of them are worked by 
electricity, and are controlled at will by a single engineer, herein being 
a forcible illustration of progress in the invention of labor-saving 
machinery. 

The exhibit of pumping engines, also included in this class, is grouped 
around a basin of cement filled with water, and placed at the junction of 
the main hall and its annex. There are about fifty exhibitors, by whom are 
shown all kinds of machines, single, duplex, horizontal, and vertical, 
iron and wooden pumps, hand pumps and those operated by compressed air and 
steam, pumps for the farm-yard and other adapted to artesian wells. To 
demonstrate their several qualities the exhibitors depend upon the central 
reservoir, from which are drawn and returned its contents according to the 
power with which the pumps are supplied. One powerful force pump 
discharges into a large wooden trough; others send columns or sprays of 
water into the tank, and a Cincinnati firm has erected a shapely fountain, 
around which its air compressors and steam pumps smoothly perform their 
offices. An Illinois company displays an aerating pump which forces air to 
the bottom of a cistern, thus 

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purifying the water; and a Pennsylvania establishment has on exhibition a 
steam-pump that will raise water from a depth of 500 feet, designed for 
the use of factories, mines, and irrigating systems. Of windmills there is 
only a single specimen; but there is a special outdoor exhibit of 
windmills in connection with the Agricultural department, and especially 
of such as are used for farming purposes. 

Adjacent to this section are the soda-water apparatus, apparatus for 
drawing beer, and for bottling and corking. By one firm is displayed its 
methods of carbonizing soda and mineral waters, champagne and other wines, 
and by another a machine for washing and rinsing beer bottles in one 
operation. Among the miscellaneous articles included in this group are 
iron and other metallic pipes, tubes, and fittings, stop valves, cocks, 
and such accessories for transmitting power. Under the heading of 
hydraulic and pneumatic apparatus is diving and refrigerating machinery. 
In the United States section there is no general exhibit of diving 
apparatus; but in the Midway plaisance experiments are shown in deep sea 
diving, illustrating the used of modern appliances, including the workings 
of the submarine bell telephone. The largest exhibit of refrigerating 
apparatus and machines for making ice was installed outside the building, 
in the Cold Storage plant, elsewhere described in this chapter, together 
with its destruction by fire. In separate structures also are the exhibits 
of a Chicago firm in connection with the Waukesha Hygeia mineral springs 
company, and of a New Orleans factory; but within the hall is the 150 ton 
refrigerating machine of a New York firm, with double acting compressor. 

In the annex, west of the engines which form a portion of the power plant, 
is a small collection of apparatus for extinguishing fires. The only 
display of large fire engines is by a company at Seneca Falls, New York; 
but several Chicago houses show the latest inventions in chemical 
apparatus, and hand grenades. The remainder of the group consists of hose, 
nozzles, couplings, water towers, and models of fire-escapes, among the 
last of which one of the most practicable contrivances is a cage moving on 
an inclined ladder, supported by an upright, the crank that propels the 
escape being wound by operators below. Most of the exhibiting firms in 
this department have installed their apparatus in the fire stations 
distributed throughout the grounds, and at the fire above referred to many 
of them were put to the test. 

The largest of the miscellaneous exhibits is contained in the western 
portion of the annex, overflowing thence into the model machine-shop south 
of it. The latter was furnished entirely by a New York and Chicago 
company, for the purpose of displaying the specialties of manufacturers 
for whom they are agents. Here also the several firms with which the 
company has dealings exhibit specialties of their own, as forgings from 
iron, steel, copper, and bronze, lathes, vises, planers, drills, and 
punching and shearing devices. One of the exhibiting companies has a 
contract with the government for furnishing the army and navy departments 
with more than $1,000,000 worth of turning, boring, and rifling lathes. 

Beyond the machine-shop, and in the body of the hall, is an extension of 
this exhibit, where not only machinists, but steam fitters, blacksmiths, 
and tinsmiths may examine the most improved appliances of their trades, 
and at times may see them handled by skillful craftsmen. Included in this 
collection are riveting machines, shears for cutting sheet metal, 
hydraulic forging presses, power hammers, milling machines, portable 
forges, drills, planers, pneumatic pressing machines, and special 
machinery for making car pins and wheels, and the various parts of 
locomotives, marine boilers, and metallic bridges. A Trenton factory has 
its own brand of anvils and vises, and claims to be the oldest 
establishment of the kind in the United States. From the mint at 
Philadelphia comes 

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the first steam coining-press used by the government, and among other 
interesting exhibits are machines which transform solid bars of steel into 
wire netting for gallery fences and for use as substitutes for lathing, 
with such as make hooks and eyes, chains, and steel fence posts. 

Of machinery for the manufacture of textile fabrics and clothing, there 
are more than 70 exhibits in the north-western section of Machinery Hall. 
In the former class are included not only apparatus for the production of 
silks, cottons, linens, and woolens, for carpets, tapestries, laces, and 
embroideries, for ropes and twines, and other fibrous products, but such 
as is used for the making of paper, felt, and rubber gods, and for the 
preparation and working of leather. Here may be studied the various stages 
of textile manufacture in all its branches, and especially in the 
operation of the looms, not only by way of illustration, but in the 
production of goods to order, forming an attractive and realistic working 
display. Silks, for instance, of intricate figures, are fashioned before 
the eyes of the observer by processes in which are still retained, though 
with many improvements, the principles evolved by Joseph Marie Jacquard, 
whose invention brought him first the maledictions, and then the homage of 
Lyons silk-weavers. 

Very noticeable are the improvements made in looms of the Jacquard 
pattern, even with the last decade. Among visitors to the Fair are those 
who still remember the first of these looms exhibited in Chicago, not many 
years ago, at a local exposition held on the lake front. Though a huge and 
cumbersome piece of mechanism, it performed many wonderful feats, or such 
they seemed to the throngs that gathered around it, producing, for 
instance, exposition badges and portraits of General Grant, all of them 
woven in silk. In contrast with it are those of modern make, as displayed 
in this department, with countless strings of perforated cards, set in 
motion at every throw of the shuttle, each perforation representing one or 
more threads in the woof. Such looms are used mainly for the intricate 
designs, and not alone for silk-weaving, but for the weaving of carpets, 
and other textile fabrics. By the largest among this group are woven 
bordered carpets twelve feet square, and at the smallest 

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of antique pattern, and fashioned entirely of wood, sits and aged man from 
a Philadelphia factory, moving the treadle by foot, and the shuttles by 
hand. With the exception of one for making Turkish towels, this is the 
only hand-loom in the collection. At the former a Turk, in orthodox native 
costume, bends over his task, and with true oriental deliberation swings 
forward his beam, and passes his shuttle through the warp. Next to him, by 
way of contrast, a modern Jacquard weaves a couple of towels at a time. 

Of machinery for the production of silk goods there are several exhibits, 
some of them including looms for the manufacture of cotton, woolens, and 
mixed or miscellaneous textiles. Among the more interesting collections 
are those from Worcester, Massachusetts, one of its exhibiting firms 
stating that 10,000 of its looms are at work in foreign lands. A 
Philadelphia house has a large display of apparatus; Pittsburgh and 
Paterson are also represented, and there is a single machine from the 
quaint old Connecticut seaport of Stonington, founded on Long Island sound 
in 1649, and where still are traces of its bombardment by a British 
squadron during the war of 1812. 

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To describe all the workings of these looms is no part of my purpose, even 
were such description practicable; nor would days and weeks of close 
observation and study unfold to the visitor their manifold intricacies. 
Swiftly and smoothly they run, while producing the most elaborate as well 
as the most simple patterns, stopping when they should, and indicating by 
noisy demonstration when something is amiss, so that the operator would 
almost seem to be controlled by his loom, and not the loom by its 
operator. From the upper portion of the machine a mass of film-like 
threads passes downward in unbroken line, mingling with the warp in 
complicated and mysterious fashion, while darting alternately, from left 
to right and from right to left, the shuttles perform their noisy task. As 
an instance of their rapidity of movement, it may be stated that, in the 
manufacture of towels of the finer grades, the shuttles pass to and fro 
more than 100 times over every square inch of their surface, and yet of 
such towels several hundreds a day can be made by half a dozen looms, with 
the aid of a single operator. "My days are swifter than a weaver's
shuttle," exclaimed the afflicted patriarch; but Job had never seen in 
motion a modern Jacquard loom. 

Silk ribbons are made at the rate of two dozen pieces at a time, and 
passing from the loom as finished fabrics are wound into rolls by 
apparatus placed beneath. These are of many patterns, colors, and 
qualities, the warp displaying all the hues of the rainbow as the threads 
pass swiftly across the frame. The silk machines are worked by women, all 
of whom appear to be expert operatives, passing rapidly to and fro, 
correcting faults and imperfections, stopping the loom when needed by 
simply moving a bar at its lower end, and setting again in motion its 
endless array of threads. In addition to dress silks and ribbons, some of 
the former in heavy brocades, and the latter with satin finish, souvenir 
badges, and figured and embroidered handkerchiefs are manufactured by the 
dozen, with other articles classed under the head of art-weaving. 

By the three Worcester firms mentioned as among makers of silk machinery, 
cotton and woolen 

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looms are also largely produced. Of such as are used for fabrics made 
partially of cotton there are several collections; Pawtucket, Rhode 
Island, has a minor display, and the great manufacturing town of Lowell, 
the Manchester of America, with nearly 200 mills, with 25,000 looms at 
work, and more than 1,000,000 spindles, is represented at the great 
World's Fair by a single cotton machine. Yet in the foundries and machine 
shops of Lowell are produced nearly all classes of apparatus such as is 
used in her factories. In a miniature cotton mill are demonstrated all the 
various processes of converting the raw material into finished goods. 
Cotton, fresh from the bale, is placed in the feeder, where it is freed 
from refuse, and then smoothed and carded into suitable lengths. Then, 
after other preliminary treatment, it is woven into fabrics, the spindles 
moving so rapidly that to the unpracticed eye they appear not to move at 
all. 

Another interesting process is that of making threads, which can be seen 
to excellent advantage in the exhibit of a Connecticut factory, its 
location, together with the character of its exhibits displayed by a sign, 
with the word "Willimantic" fashioned in spools of black thread on a 
background of white. Several times a minute the lettering is changed, the 
inscription alternating with that of spool-cotton, through some ingenious 
manipulation too swift for the eye to detect. By one of the machines, 
named a spool-winder, eight spools are wound at a time, each with 200 
yards of thread; the thread is cut and fastened into a notch on the edge 
of the spool; the spools are labelled, and others take their place, all by 
automatic methods and without a moment's cessation. There are also ready 
wound bobbins for sewing and other machines, with balls of thread for 
various purposes; there are threads of all sizes and colors in the form of 
panels, and pillars, and on a revolving cylinder columns of spool cotton 
in every hue are being woven together, as by a braiding machine. 

Of machines for knit underwear there are several in operation, producing 
yard after yard of fabric which, with but slight manipulation, is 
transformed into garments. In contrast with them are two hand machines, 
turned by cranks, and of primitive fashion. A Philadelphia firm has among 
its collection an apparatus for making underwear trimmings at the rate of 
fifty yards an hour. Another Philadelphia 

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company has hosiery and mitten machines of various sizes. A Chicago 
company shows some swift-running specimens; but in this department the 
entire display is far from complete, some of the best machinery and such 
as is widely used for knit goods being omitted altogether from the group. 
Other textiles are also in process of manufacture, from jeans and 
homespuns to the finest of laces and embroideries. 

The exhibits of machinery for the production of clothing include such as 
is used for shoes and gloves; but no shoes are made in Machinery hall, the 
apparatus being adapted only to lining, cementing, heeling, and certain 
finishing processes, as the making of button-holes. Glove-making is shown 
in all the stages whereby a piece of tanned skin is converted into a pair 
of many buttoned kid, carefully stitched, perfumed, and packed, in 
readiness for use. There are also machines for belt-lacing, for working 
hides and leather, for harness, saddlery and whips, for rubber stamps, and 
felt goods. Of sewing machines for household and factory use, and for 
stitching leather and other heavy materials, there are several 
collections, but with little of special interest in this department. 

Paper-making machinery is included, as I have said, among textile 
apparatus, and here may be observed the process whereby wood pulp is 
transformed into bulky rolls of paper ready for the printing-press. The 
pulp is made from spruce logs, but into suitable lengths, ground and mixed 
with sulphite, to soften the fibre and destroy all deleterious substances. 
When ready for the mill the material is placed in the beater, and 
thoroughly mixed with the sizing, coloring, and other matter which enters 
into the finished product. Then, in a semi-liquid condition, it is drawn 
off into a storage tank beneath, and presently submitted to a further 
mixing and grinding operation performed by a so-called perfecting machine. 
As yet, however, the paper is anything but finished, resembling somewhat 
curdled cream, but of whiter complexion, and only after much further 
manipulation, which need not here be described, is ready to receive on its 
surface the news of the world. In this machine, fashioned at the Beloit 
Iron works, with a capacity of ten tons of paper a day, and occupying more 
than 100 feet of longitudinal floor space, are contained nearly 200 tons 
of steel and iron. 

Nowhere better than in Machinery hall, and especially in the textile 
group, can the visitor study the industrial phases of factory life. Here 
may be seen at work operatives of the better class in the leading branches 
of manufacture, men and women working side by side in producing the 
countless articles for use or ornament which grow into shape before the 
eyes of the observer. While attending to their several tasks they are 
always ready to answer questions or to offer brief explanations, the 
latter, however, too thickly interlarded with technical phrase to throw 
much light on the subject; 

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for what seems to them as simple as the alphabet is to the average 
spectator a labyrinth of mysteries. Nevertheless one may learn as much 
from these miniature mills and factories as by making a tour of the 
manufacturing centres of the United States. 

Extending along the northern aisle and adjacent to the textile group is 
the Printing-press row of Machinery hall, where, covering more than 12,000 
square feet of space, are presses, type-setting, type-casting, electro-
typing, paper-cutting, book-binding, and other apparatus, the first 
including machines of various designs and dates, from such as did duty in 
the colonial era to those of modern make. Among the former, and included 
in the Hoe exhibit, is one of antique fashion, made by the same man, and 
of the same pattern as that which Benjamin Franklin used while working as 
a journeyman printer in London. In strange contrast with the swift-running 
presses of today, turning out their thirty-two page newspapers at the rate 
of 12,000 an hour, is this ungainly relic of a by-gone age, with its 
angular wooden frame, its rusty crank, and its long old-fashioned slide, 
the structure creaking and groaning under its tasks of printing on one 
side some 300 miniature sheets and hour, each twelve by sixteen inches. A 
still more ancient specimen is the original Bradford press, the first one 
used in New York, with a model of the pioneer printing-office established 
in that city by William Bradford, on the 15th of April, 1693. Here also is 
the first printing-press used in New Hampshire, made by one Thomas Draper 
of Boston in 1742, later used by the state printer, and after other 
changes of ownership passing into the hands of its exhibitor, the Campbell 
Printing Press Manufacturing company. Among other curiosities is an old 
Ramage press exhibited by a Chicago company, together with samples of its 
type-casting machines. Side by side with these primitive appliances are 
marvels of printing mechanism, into one side of which the paper passes 
fresh from the roll in long unbroken line, and from the other comes forth 
in the form of printed and folded journals, at the rate of many thousands 
an hour. 

Of printing-presses there is at least a score of exhibitors, some of them 
including stereotyping, electrotyping, paper-cutting, and other apparatus. 
Included in this group are samples of all descriptions, from perfecting 
presses to such as are used for job work. First may be mentioned those of 
Richard Hoe and company, whose eight and ten-cylinder presses, throwing 
off 20,000 impressions an hour, and introduced about the middle of the 
century in New York, Philadelphia, and London, were supposed to represent 
the final limit of workmanship and speed. Soon, however, in the leading 
newspaper offices, where time is counted by 

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seconds, web perfecting presses were reeling off their eight-page journals 
at the rate of 700 or 800 a minute. One of the highest forms of 
development is found in the Hoe quadruple web-perfecting press, now 
largely used by popular newspapers with their mammoth Sunday editions. By 
this machine a four-page newspaper can be printed and folded at the rate 
of 90,000 an hour; one of six or eight pages at half that speed, one of 
from ten to sixteen pages at 24,000, and one of twenty-four to thirty-two 
pages at 12,000 an hour. Some of these processes may be seen in actual 
operation in Printing-press row, not only on Hoe machines but on those of 
the Goss, Potter, and Scott patterns, all of which are here on exposition. 

To the majority of Exposition sight-seers it may not be known that the 
newspapers laid on their breakfast or dinner tables were printed in 
Machinery hall; but here we may observe the entire process whereby from 
these perfecting presses are issued, more swiftly than the eye can count 
them, the sheets of several Chicago journals. In a separate building, 
south of the western annex, was installed through lack of space, and as a 
precaution against fire, the electrotyping machinery, forming probably the 
largest collection ever contained within a single edifice, with compelte 
sets of the most recent and approved apparatus fashioned by leading 
manufactures. These are also in actual operation, and thus may be seen how 
a newspaper is born into the world, from the making of its stereotype 
plates from papier-mache matrices, until the finished and folded sheets 
are ready for the newsboy, all eager to disturb with reiterated cry the 
morning sleep of the Fair pilgrim. 

Chicago is well represented in this department by five exhibiting firms, 
one of them the Goss Printing-press company, three of whose perfecting 
presses are here at work. The Miehle Printing Press and Manufacturing 
company has also a press in operation, of Chicago invention and make, on 
which is printed the page now before the reader, that is to say The Book 
of the Fair, the type for which came from Barnhart Brothers and Spindler, 
who are likewise among Chicago exhibitors. The remaining exhibits are from 
New York, New Jersey, New England and mid-continental states. Barnhard 
Brothers and Spindler and the American Type Founders' company illustrate 
the evolution of type-foundries. First is the primitive apparatus in the 
form of a hand-mold, made in 1793; then one with rotary motion, of the 
date of 1840; another worked by steam and fashioned in 1870, and finally 
the perfected mechanism of 1893. Of type-setting machines there are 
several exhibits, one firm displaying also a type-line casting machine, 
and of printers' materials and miscellaneous appliances there are one or 
two assortments. 

Of paper-cutting and paper-folding apparatus there are many specimens, and 
among the former may be seen at work some of the largest machines of their 
kind, run by heavy leather belting, and requiring only a turn of the wrist 
to cut through a ream of the thickest 

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paper as though it were a roll of butter or a mass of lard. The latter are 
used both for book and periodical work, with hand or automatic feed, and 
with all the improvements devised since first the folding-machine was 
introduced in the United States, some forty years ago. By a firm whose 
headquarters are at Little Falls, New York are displayed its paper-working 
appliances, such as are attached to ruling and folding machines and 
printing-presses. Of book-binding and book-sewing machines there are 
several exhibits, the latter both for thread and wire stitching, and there 
are a few embossing and inking machines, some of them performing all 
grades of work with equal facility. 

Few in number, but of excellent quality, are the exhibits illustrating the 
various methods of lithography, color-printing, and other processes, 
partly chemical, and partly mechanical, which have been devised as 
substitutes for the productions of the brush, the pen, the pencil, or 
crayon. By a New York firm are displayed its lithographic distribution 
presses, and by Chicago exhibitors a multi-color process, and a duplex 
color ink-plate for printing-presses. 

In the group of machinery for working in wood, separated from the textile 
section by the main longitudinal nave, is sufficient evidence of the rapid 
progress which recent years have witnessed in this department. But the 
limit has not yet been reached or even approached, and in few branches of 
mechanical invention are there greater possibilities. The turning-lathe, 
for instance, which a few years ago could only be used for shaping wood 
into rounded forms, will now give to it many varieties of outline, from 
square to spiral, and from oval to polygonal. So also with machines used 
for carving, stamping, molding, tonguing, and mortising lumber, and for 
all the various operations in which machinery does the work that was 
formerly done by hand. Yet in each of these processes there is still much 
room for improvement. 

Among the more remarkable exhibits is one by a Pennsylvania manufacture, 
in the form of a so-called geometrical machine. While not altogether new, 
there are few of this pattern in use in the United States; for here is a 
mechanism that can only be handled by the most skillful of mechanics, one 
producing perfect specimens of workmanship, and in all such figures in 
solid geometry, as avail for practical use. A New York firm has special 
machines for the manufacture of the woodwork used in pianos and organs. 
Dubuque sends a swift-moving chain mortiser, in which chisels are entirely 
dispensed with, the chain revolving on pulleys of graduated sizes 
according to the width of the mortise. Among other mortisers of special 
pattern is one used by a Chicago firm whose specialty is in the line of 
car-building machinery. By its carriage attachment of iron, moving on 
rails, and by the iron rollers on the upper part of the machine is greatly 
facilitated the handling of heavy lumber. The same firm shows a double 
mortiser, mainly for door-work, an almost perfect specimen of labor-saving 
machinery. 

A Cincinnati manufacturer displays a matcher of improved design, with 
stationary bed, and of which the 

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heads and rollers can be raised or lowered, and the pressure increased at 
will by an automatic process. From a Boston firm comes a matcher and 
molder of similar pattern, but with improvements permitting greater 
facility in working. Buffalo shows a planer which will work on the four 
sides of a piece of timber. Somewhat of a novelty is an ingraining machine 
from Hutton, Pennsylvania, whereby white-faced woods, as pine, spruce, 
maple, birch, and poplar are transformed into perfect imitations of 
quartered oak or other high-priced articles, and thus almost doubled in 
value. The designs are painted on a drum with thirty-inch face, revolving 
three times a minute, and capable of treating 6,000 feet of lumber an 
hour, to which it gives an additional value of about $20 a thousand, thus 
earning $1,200 for each working day. Saws and sawing-machines, files and 
filing machines are liberally represented, a Fitchburg, Massachusetts 
company, established in 1832, claiming to be the largest manufacturers of 
saws and machine-knives in the United States, and that its goods are made 
by distinct and patented processes. In a separate building is a model saw-
mill, mentioned under the heading of Miscellany. Of wood-working machinery 
there are many samples, and among wood-carving appliances are some whose 
motions resemble those of the human arm. There are also wood-embossing, 
shingling, barrel-making, box-nailing, pattern-making, and other special 
apparatus, while a Cincinnati firm has specimens of machinery used in the 
navy yards of the United States. Although classified together, the 
machines for working stone, clay, glass, and other materials, and for 
making spike and nails are grouped in widely separated portions of the 
hall. Several firms display their processes of grinding and finishing 
lenses, and here may be observed the method of manufacturing wire nails. 
Another miscellaneous class is grouped near the water tank, in the western 
section of the annex. It includes all kinds of dynamometers for testing 
the strength of materials; the machinery used by jewelers, and opticians, 
and the laundry and dish washing apparatus. The laundry machines are of 
ingenious mechanism, and the more simple automatic dish-washers may be 
seen at work in the annex, and in several of the Exposition restaurants. 
Several eastern manufactures have a large collection of watchmakers' 
tools; in one of these booths are made souvenir thimbles of gold and 
silver, and 

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in the main hall a Chicago company displays its method of manufacturing 
pens. To the miscellaneous classes also belong the exhibit of road-making 
and street-cleaning machines, placed outside the building. 

In the northwest corner of the annex is a collection of apparatus for the 
preparation of various articles of food. In one large pavilion a Milwaukee 
manufacturer has an extensive display of flour-mill machinery and by an 
eastern firm are exhibited portable flour-mills. Then there are chocolate 
and sugar mills, meat-choppers and dough-mixers, and mills of all kinds 
for the preparation of cereals, coffee, and spices, together with bone 
crushers and models which show how the oil is extracted from cotton seed. 
Among the most ingenious mechanisms is one for pouring the beans into 
bags, arranged on a movable plate, and remaining just long enough to 
receive one pound of coffee, after which they are sealed, labeled, and 
passed forward for inspection, by means of a traveling belt. 

Except for a few specimens contained in Machinery Hall, the exhibits of 
refrigerating apparatus and of ice-making machines were installed, as I 
have said, in the Cold Storage building, in the south-western portion of 
the grounds. Here were displayed the various methods of artificial 
freezing, and the several processes for the preservation of such 
perishable articles as fruit, meat, eggs, and butter. In the manufacture 
of ice, filtered water, and condensed and purified steam were the 
principal materials used. Of this building, and its destruction by fire a 
description is given at the close of this chapter under the heading of 
World's Fair Miscellany. 

Turning to the foreign sections in Machinery hall we find that, as in 
other departments, the German groups have been selected and arranged with 
special care, furnishing sufficient proof, if proof were needed, that the 
empire is holding its own in the markets of the world. For general 
purposes this branch of industry, as represented in the Fatherland, may be 
classed in three divisions; first, the casting of iron; second, the 
construction of machinery; and third, the conversion of manufactured iron 
into structural forms. Year by year these industries are assuming larger 
proportions, and while gaining in volume are gaining far more in quality. 
Of castings alone there were produced in 1890 more than 1,000,000 tons, 
keeping busy 1,150 establishments, and affording employment to 64,000 
operatives. In the production of machines and apparatus of all 
descriptions at least 200,000 persons were employed, with exports for that 
year exceeding 80,000 tons, and valued at nearly $20,000,000. 

Passing through the northern portal of the hall the visitor enters at once 
the German section, occupying 

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50,000 square feet of space, and flanked by the British division. But here 
are contained only portions of the German exhibits, agricultural 
implements, mining apparatus, locomotives, dynamos, and other machinery 
being housed in the various departments to which they belong. At the 
intersection of the main aisles is a triple expansion engine, connected 
with a dynamo, for illumination purposes, and for the transmission of 
electric power. This engine, built by an Elbing manufacturer in western 
Prussia, is of 1,000 horse-power, its frame entirely of wrought iron, its 
stroke of 28 inches, and its revolutions at the rate of 100 to the minute. 
At its side, is a smaller engine, forming its counterpart in miniature, 
and used for driving a portion of the shafting in Machinery hall. Adjacent 
to this group are the gas and petroleum engines, the largest not exceeding 
thirty-five, and the smallest of three horse-power. As in England, these 
machines are rapidly gaining in favor, and of especial excellence are 
those of German make. By one of the exhibiting firms, employing 1,000 
workmen, and with a branch factory in Philadelphia, have been produced 
some 40,000 engines, since their works were opened in 1864, as the pioneer 
enterprise in this department, now protected by patents in many countries. 

East of these exhibits is that of a Leipsic firm, whose speciality is the 
manufacture of sawing-machines and machines for working in wood, of which 
their 600 workmen have already produced some 24,000 specimens. Here is 
reproduced what is claimed to be the largest saw-mill in existence, but 
one that appears somewhat crude as compared with American models, and with 
few of the time and labor-saving devices contained in the latter. In 
charge of expert workmen is a large collection of apparatus in actual 
operation. Still further east a Dusseldorf factory, with a branch 
establishment at Pittsburgh, has a display of machine-tools and saws of 
all sizes and patterns, form hand, jug, and circular saws, to such as will 
cut the thickest armor plate. One fashioned for the latter purpose is more 
than four feet in diameter, with teeth half an inch thick, and of the 
hardest steel. In the north-east corner of this section another Dusseldorf 
firm shows its machines for making armor and hand-chains, with wire-nail, 
riveting, and other presses. At the western extremity a Nuremberg 
manufacture exhibits fine wires of brass, steel, and German silver, some 
of them in skeins as delicate as silk, with wire brushes for household and 
other purposes. 

As displayed at the Fair the German machines for working in wood and 
metals are strongly and carefully fashioned, and well provided with 
safeguards; but somewhat cumbersome, lacking in finish, and in other 
respects inferior to those of American make. Nevertheless there are among 
these group appliances well worthy of 

Page 330

consideration. Such, for instance, is the one used for planning and 
molding, in which the lumber, after being placed in the machine, is 
stripped of its outside covering by knives with a rotary motion, and the 
finish imparted by stationary knives over which the lumber passes. It is 
then carried by rollers to other apparatus by which it is planed to the 
required thickness, and tongued and grooved for flooring, ceiling, 
wainscoting, and various uses. Another machine of similar pattern can 
produce 50,000 feet of flooring a day, and a third, in the form of a had-
feed planer and jointner, is one that might be used to advantage by our 
own mechanics. 

A minor but interesting exhibit, adjoining that of the Dusseldorf firm, is 
a match factory, where may be observed the process of making matches, 
together with the boxes that contain them. A single machine, and that one 
worked by a single operative, can cut 12,000,000 matches a day from blocks 
of wood prepared for the purpose. By an ingenious contrivance more than 2,
000 matches at a time can be dipped in the igniting substance, a 
counterfeit being used for the purpose of illustration, as inflammable 
materials are forbidden by the authorities. For preparing the boxes, there 
are two machines, one shaving the wood into very thin sheets, and another 
cutting, folding, and labeling at the rate of 30,000 or 40,000 a day. 

German foundries and machine-shops are fairly represented in this section 
by exhibiting firms and companies in addition to those already mentioned; 
but here it may be stated that the term machine-shop or machine-builder is 
not used in Germany in the American sense of the phrase, some of these 
establishments producing a large variety of articles. From a Magdeburg 
firm are specimens of its portable steam-engines, with extension tubular 
boilers, of which about 750 were manufactured in 1890-1, with a total of 
15,500 horse-power. A Remscheid factory in Rhenish Prussia has samples of 
its seamless steel tubes, fashioned by a patented process in all 
descriptions of steel, with a large collection of miscellaneous articles, 
from boiler tubes to telegraph poles. A Gotha 

Page 331

foundry displays its turbines, with a capacity of 50 horse-power, and a 
velocity of 170 revolutions to the minute. Another Magdeburg company has a 
collection of crushing and grinding machinery, with models of gas engines, 
and the products of chilled and malleable iron. By a Hamburg firm are 
shown its smoke-consuming furnaces, of which several were ordered for the 
new Reichstag buildings in Berlin, another exhibitor making a specialty of 
water-tube boilers and apparatus for superheating steam. 

Of power-transmitting appliances there are several exhibits, a Hamburg 
manufacturer supplying the belting which runs the machines of a dozen or 
more exhibitors. By another firm is shown the Rouleaux method of endless 
driving ropes for the simultaneous transmission of power in several 
directions. Of fire-extinguishing apparatus there is but a single 
illustration, furnished by the oldest of German factories in this 
department. In the line of textile and other fabrics, including knit goods 
and embroidery, there are many samples of machinery and work. A Dusseldorf 
firm has a collection of apparatus for decorative purposes, and a Berlin 
house, cutting machines for the materials used in making garments of all 
descriptions. An exhibitor from the little Saxony town of Aue shows how he 
makes 6,000,000 sheet-metal bobbins a year, such as are serviceable in 
many branches of textile industries. From the same town comes a large 
assortment of carding, napping, pressing, and other apparatus, with 
spinning machines for woof and web. Knitting machines are well 
represented, and though working less swiftly than those of American make, 
produce more durable goods. In this connection may also be mentioned the 
display of an asbestos factory at Frankfort-on-the-Main, by which are 
worked up more than 1,000 tons of raw material, largely procured from its 
mines at Black lake, in the province of Quebec. 

Of paper-making, paper-ruling, and book-binding machinery there are a few 
exhibits, and these for the most of old-fashioned apparatus, of which, 
however, many are furnished with modern improvements. In the entire hall 
there are but two paper-ruling machines of recent pattern, one a German, 
and the other an American invention, both using brass disks, fitted with 
metal rods, whereby the lines can be spaced to the thirtieth part of an 
inch. For the German machine, which is a model of simplicity and neatness, 
it is claimed that 4,000 sheets an hour can be ruled on both sides under 
the direction of a single operative. With a display of book-binding 
machinery a Dresden firm combines riveting and edging apparatus, and such 
as is used for the making of pasteboard boxes. By an Augsburg exhibitor is 
displayed a rotating machine for printing illustrations, and by a 
Heidelberg establishment a so-called lightning press, with automatic 
lifter and envelope feeder, by which can be printed 40,000 envelopes a 
day. 

Page 332

For the production of staple and other articles of food there is a large 
collection of apparatus from a firm with branches in several European 
capitals. A Dresden exhibitor has a somewhat heterogeneous assortment of 
machines for chocolate and candy factories, for white lead, and paint 
factories, and for ink, soap, and perfumery factories. A Brunswick house 
an equally varied exhibit, with models, originals, or illustrations of 
turbines and roll-tables, hydraulic machines, grain, oil, and other mills, 
and appliances for husking grain, and for giving color to rice. Still 
another Dresden establishment has samples of the 2,000 machines produced 
each year for automatic milling plants the flour-mills and warehouses. 
From Berlin works come specimens of their porcelains and earthenware, 
their gas-retorts, their gas and steam-boiler furnaces, and their 
insulating materials for various purposes. A Hanover firm displays a 
number of patented pulley-blocks, and a Berlin house, with a branch in New 
York, its so-called smoke-hoods, used in the German and English navies, 
and its protective apparatus for firemen and others exposed to smoke and 
noxious vapors. Finally, there is a large collection of miscellaneous 
exhibits, including machinery and apparatus for cord and rope factories, 
for distilleries, for making shoes, for crushing rocks, for washing ores, 
for the manufacture of cement, and so forth till we come to meat and 
sausage machines, all forms of mechanism known to the Fatherland being 
here on exposition. 

Great Britain is represented by a small but choice collection in the space 
assigned to her in the north-east corner of Machinery hall. Of late the 
tendency among British manufactures has been 

Page 333

toward the construction of machines for particular lines of work such as 
perform that work to the best advantage, and with the greatest economy of 
fuel and power. Steam engines, for instance, of all descriptions are not 
only modelled and proportioned for special uses, but are supplied with 
apparatus for super-heating the steam before it enters the cylinders, and 
also for its thorough condensation, the same steam often being used in 
several cylinders. So with gas engines, which in some departments are 
rapidly superseding steam-engines. In the production of war material this 
specialization is about the only improvement made within recent years, 
machines being so constructed as to perform only a single operation, but 
to perform it to perfection. Such also is and long has been the drift in 
other branches of mechanism, and thus alone can England continue to 
compete with the United States, where within a year or two the production 
of a given article is often doubled or trebled by new labor-saving 
appliances.(1)

Page 334

First and largest among the eleven groups contained in this section is 
that which includes motors, and apparatus for the generation and 
transmission of power. Here is a horizontal compound engine of Manchester 
make, by which is driven one of the three lines of shafting in the British 
section. With 70 revolutions to the minute, a boiler pressure of 100 
pounds indicates 350 horse-power. Its high-pressure cylinder being placed 
above it, and with the axis of the former radial to the shaft centre. The 
governor is in the shape of a parabola, with cylindrical fly-balls, and is 
connected with, and controls, the rod of the expansion valve, thus 
admitting steam as required. The workmanship is of thorough English type, 
solid, substantial, and with the parts so perfectly balanced that the 
engine runs smoothly and quickly, is readily controlled, and with 
remarkable steadiness of turning. 

The other lines of shafting are driven by two single-acting central-valve 
engines, running smoothly and silently, but with remarkable speed, the 
normal rate 

Page 335

exceeding 350 revolutions to the minute. A feature in both is their small 
consumption of steam, which falls as low as 13 pounds an hour for each 
horse-power. In connection with this exhibit is a two-pole dynamo 
generating electricity through power supplied by the engine to which it is 
attached, at the rate of about 85 percent of the indicated horse-power, 
the remainder being lost by friction. Here is a fair specimen of an 
English central station plant, ten of these sets forming the plant now in 
use at one of the largest London stations. By a Grantham firm is displayed 
a safety oil engine, in which the usual apparatus for firing the charge is 
dispensed with, the oil being converted into gas in a red-hot vaporizer. 
From Dumbarton works are models of quadruple expansion marine engines, now 
largely used by ocean and channel steamers. Among the exhibits in this 
group is a dual screw steam engine for propelling vessels, with concentric 
shafts, and without gear or belting. Worthy of note also is a large 
collection of beltings, including such as are made of slotted steel, 
leather, rubber, gutta percha, and textile fabrics, with other articles 
for railroad, military, and mechanical purposes. 

Of apparatus for extinguishing fires there is a slender display, as also 
of machines for working in metal and wood, for lithographing and color 
printing, and for photo-mechanical and other mechanical processes of 
illustration, the last contained in the hall of Manufactures and Liberal 
Arts. Machinery for the fabrication of textiles is better represented, one 
firm sending a complete set of cotton cleaning, combing, and carding 
apparatus, and others spinning frames, and looms for cotton, wool, and 
silk, among the latter several of the Jacquard pattern. Of printing 
machines 

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there is one which, in addition to its primary use, serves also for 
cutting, collecting, pasting, foldings, and counting, and a London firm 
displays type distributing, composing, and justifying machines, with racks 
so arranged as to show the use of apparatus for distributing all the 
founts of ordinary type, from pico to pearl. A Leeds manufacturer has a 
machine by which bricks are made at a single operation, and a London 
establishment shows models of its kilns and ovens for burning bricks, 
tiles, pottery, and terra cotta ware, with samples of articles so burned. 
Of machinery for the preparation of food there are several exhibitors, one 
having a plant complete for bread and biscuit-making, for pastry, cakes, 
and confectionery. Finally there is in another group a so-called automatic 
refreshment stall, such as is used in factories and public streets for 
distributing light refreshments and temperance beverages.

As with most of the foreign participants, France has no very imposing 
display in Machinery hall, her exhibits consisting mainly of apparatus for 
the cutting of glass-ware, the manufacture of confectionery, soap, and 
candles, the grinding and polishing of lenses, and the making of delicate 
embroideries. In this section there is no massive machinery, the nearest 
approach to it being the display of mill-stones by a French quarryman, and 
a collection of castings and other articles from a firm of engineers and 
foundrymen. There are also exhibited by the Paris firm of A. Piat and 
company oscillating portable furnaces, and crucible cupolas, used among 
other purposes for gun-metal castings, statuary, and machinery bronze 
work, and ordinary brass castings. 

Adjoining the French section, Mexico and Russia occupy small areas, the 
latter covering about 3,000 square feet. The Mexican exhibit is mainly one 
of high-speed engines, of no great size, but powerful, and well 
constructed. Russia has models of her enginery of war, with a collection 
of petroleum grates and furnaces, charts and drawings from the 

Page 338

government institute of technology, and illustrations of the course of 
instruction pursued in the school for sub-marine divers, at Cronstadt. 
Methods of lighting by electric lamps, and of regulating the breathing of 
the divers are shown by photographs, and on a table near by is a huge 
diver's suit of orthodox pattern. 

Austria occupies more than 8,000 square feet between the French and 
Belgian sections. In one of the booths is delicate glassware, much of it 
adorned with outlines of the Exposition buildings; in another, 
handkerchiefs, embroideries, and various fabrics. Among machines and 
appliances are those for making bons-bons, for lithographic work, and 
protective purposes, and for operating circular saws, while a Pilsen 
factory displays some specimens of ordnance, a large screw for a steamer, 
and photographs of armor which has been penetrated by missiles 
manufactured at its work. 

The Brazilian booth, adjacent to the Austrian section, contains an exhibit 
of coffee cleaning apparatus, contributed by several San Paulo and Campia 
firms. One machine separates the coffee from the stones with which it may 
be mixed, the ventilator clearing away the leaves, earth, and other 
refuse; another hulls the coffee without breaking the kernels or allowing 
any to escape, reducing the shell almost to powder, which is removed by a 
connecting ventilator; a third segregates all the black and inferior 
grains, and allows the coffee to fall into a series of sieves, thus 
separating it into its several commercial grades. 

A considerable area in the eastern portion of the main hall, between the 
power plant and the British section, is covered by the exhibits from 
Belgium. The most extensive display is from the works of a large iron and 
steel company, and consists of specimens of merchantable iron, with plates 
and curved sheets, and sections of girders, sleepers, and columns. 
Elsewhere is machinery for making worsted goods and embroideries, ice 
cream and confectionery. Compared with modern American appliances, the 
apparatus for extinguishing fires is of somewhat primitive fashion, the 
fire engines of Liege reminding one of the American hand machines of fifty 
years ago. 

Near the eastern portico of the main hall is the Canadian section, the 
exhibits including a collection of small single-valve automatic engines. 
Here, also, is one of the very few boilers which are not in active use, a 
straw burning boiler, specially designed for the agriculturists of the 
sparsely timbered northwest territories. Wood and iron working machinery 
is well represented in this section, As are also such domestic appliances 
as washing machines, patent clothes lines, and meat choppers. There are 
several brick-making machines on exhibition, and the fire engine displayed 
by the Ontario works will bear comparison with those in the American 
department. 

Southwest of the German section are the small exhibits of New South Wales 
and Sweden, the chief interest in the former centring in a case of 
electrotypes presented by the government printing office as samples of its 
work. A Swedish doctor of philosophy from Stockhom contributes a few 
dynamos, and an inventor of the same city shows a machine whereby can be 
made nearly 200 barrels an hour. Adjoining the Swedish section are a few 
small Spanish machines, including those for raising water, and for 

Page 339

planing. In this vicinity also Switzerland and Italy have minor exhibits, 
the chief feature in that of the former being a practical illustration of 
processes of electro-plating with gold and silver. Lenses, embroidery 
machines, and oil manufactures are displayed in the Italian group. 

World's Fair Miscellany

Almost while in the act of penning my description of the cold Storage 
building and its contents, came their destruction by fire on the evening 
of the 10th of July, 1893. This edifice was erected by the Hercules Iron 
company of Aurora, Illinois, and the exhibits, together with the systems 
which they illustrated, were those of the West Side Artificial Ice 
company, of Chicago. From the centre of the structure rose to a height of 
220 feet a wooden tower, covered with staff, and surmounted by a dome. 
Here it was, near the base of the dome, that the fire was first 
discovered. The engines were quickly on hand, and from a narrow ledge, a 
few feet below, the men stood, hose in hand, prepared for action. But at 
this juncture tongues of fire shot forth near the base of the tower, and a 
moment later the flames broke out with a smothered roar from every portion 
of the tower, cutting off the retreat of the firemen. Then followed a 
scene of horror such as few have ever witnessed. Around this narrow ledge 
the firemen ran, vainly seeking an avenue of escape. One slid downward on 
a rope; another on a line of hose; but hose and rope snapped, and the men 
disappeared in flame and smoke. Some fell, and some threw themselves 
headlong on the roof, more than eighty feet below; and as the tower parted 
in the middle, and fell crashing into the burning gulf, the one human 
being who remained on the ledge was seen to leap into air, and then fall 
prone into the devouring sea. 

During the investigation of the coroner's jury it was shown that the steel 
smoke-stack enclosed within the tower was fourteen inches shorter than the 
structure itself. In the plans, as prepared by the architect, this space 
was to be occupied by a thimble for the protection of the exposed wood-
work; but in the construction of the building this safeguard was omitted, 
and hence the disaster, with its attendant holocaust, in which seventeen 
lives were lost. Of the gate receipts of the following Sunday $25,000 was 
set apart by the management as the nucleus of a relief fund, and this was 
swelled by further contributions to nearly $100,000. 

To the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company was awarded the 
contract for providing the plant by which the buildings and grounds of the 
Exposition are supplied with incandescent lights, and for this purpose it 
placed in Machinery hall fourteen machines, with an aggregate capacity of 
158,000 sixteen-candle power lamps. In the construction of its system were 
used some forty-five miles of wire, while the Exposition authorities 
ordered 250 miles of wire, covered with rubber, or lead, for the 
completion of the arc circuits. There are also about forty miles of 
conductors. 

Covering a large area directly south of Machinery hall are exhibits 
connected with the oil industries of the country. Great derricks, drilling 
machines, and tanks are as profusely displayed as in the oil regions of 
Pennsylvania and Ohio. The centre of these exhibits is a stone building, 
erected by the Oil Well Supply company, of Pittsburgh, outside of which 
are all the apparatus required for boring and drilling. Within the 
building, which is decorated with the flags of all nations, are models of 
machines showing the development of various processes of obtaining oil, 
with a large collection of pumps in operation, and of fittings and tools 
used in boring for petroleum and gas. Portable drills for surface wells, 
and the large machines designed for boring to a depth of about 3,000 feet 
are shown both as models and originals. In the centre of the building are 
photographic and other illustrations contrasting the present apparatus of 
the company with such as was used by its founder thirty years ago. 

About 100 feet south-east of the main hall, and a short distance from 
Michigan's logging camp, is a model saw-mill erected for the purpose of 
exhibiting, in operation, the most improved machines for transforming 
lumber into its manufactures, and for keeping machinery in repair. The 
north-west supplies white pine, the south yellow pine, the west cedar and 
cottonwood, and other sections many varieties of hard-wood, all of which 
are made into such articles as shingles, barrels, and boards. About a 
dozen companies by which are made the larger machines for working wood, 
place specimens of their work in the model mill. There are portable saw-
mills, jig, and circular saws, log rollers, and all kinds of machines for 
sharpening and setting saws, with a collection of filing machinery. 

As previously noted, the exhibit of road-making machines although included 
in this department was considerably scattered, some of the rollers being 
placed in the Transportation building, and others in the Mining and 
Agricultural buildings, and the model saw-mill. At times a collective 
exhibit of these machines in actual operation may be seen near the shore 
of the south pound, and the Intramural railroad. 

The largest boiler in the plant is in the boiler-house extension, and is 
named the Morrin's Climax. It generates steam equal to 1,500 

Page 340

horse-power, and has a heating surface of 10,000 square feet. The boilers 
are connected with the oil storage tanks by steam coils, in which the oil 
may be heated in cold weather. Exhibitors may select for themselves the 
burner to be used for their apparatus. In some cases the burners and 
connections are kept behind fire-proof doors, the supply of air passing 
from the rear to the front of the furnace, where it comes in contact with 
a spray of oil, and is heated to a high temperature before combustion 
takes place. 

By the Allis engine in Machinery hall was virtually put in motion the 
entire mechanism of the Exposition. When President Cleveland pressed the 
electric button, and closed the circuit, and electric valve attached to a 
four-inch pipe was opened, steam being thus admitted to the engine which, 
in turn, brought its two great dynamos into play. Near this engine is one 
of 1,000 horse-power, and with a fly-wheel 28 feet in diameter, belted to 
a dynamo. All exhibitors furnished with power to operate engines or 
machinery from the regular plant, paid the department at the rate of $60 
per horse-power for the season, if their machines were run continuously. 
The amount of power furnished gratuitously was only sufficient to keep a 
machine long enough in motion to show its workings. 

Except by specialists, it is not generally known that wood, granite, cast-
iron, and cpper, were formerly used in the construction of boilers, the 
last as recently as thirty years ago. When inventors were called upon to 
meet the demand of manufacturers for something that would withstand a 
higher pressure, they were obliged to substitute plate iron and steel, and 
as we have seen in speaking of the boiler plant of Machinery hall, to 
distribute the aggregate power generated among numerous tubes, or 
miniature boilers. 

While no great progress has been made within recent years toward 
increasing the efficiency of steam boilers, there has been a large 
reduction in the quantity of steam consumed by engines in proportion to 
their horse-power, amounting probably to 30 percent within the last score 
of years. This has been mainly caused by the more general introduction of 
the compound system, one by no means new, but which, for whatever reason, 
engineers were slow to adopt. It is to be regretted that no provision has 
been made in Machinery hall for a comparative test of boilers and engines, 
for which an excellent opportunity is here afforded. 

In the eastern gallery is a black walnut case from which protrude ten 
levers, and from these pulleys connect with the bells in the tower above, 
whence their chimes are heard at intervals afar in the grounds. The bells 
are fastened to a massive oak frame, the heaviest weighing 3,000 pounds, 
and the lightest, 300. It is stated that the same company which 
manufactured the first large chime of bells in the United States, more 
than fifty years ago, furnished the one in Machinery hall. 

Among the miscellaneous exhibits is that of the so-called Working-Men's 
Insurance in the form of a series of tables, or charts. This is from the 
Imperial Insurance department of the German empire, and intended to bring 
to the attention of Americans its system of compulsory insurance. Its 
three funds, providing against accident, sickness, and old age, are 
contributed from state employers and employees, the payments of each being 
determined by the aggregate of wages disbursed, and of individual wages 
received. 

Another minor exhibit in the German section is a cigar-rolling machine 
that makes cigars of every shape, and of which there are many thousands in 
use. Still another consists of dough-making machines, of a pattern for 
which it is claimed that more than thirty exposition medals have been 
received. A special class includes a large assortment of miscellaneous 
machinery and processes, including such as are used for the reproduction 
of oil paintings, for polishing plate-glass, for shelling grain, and for 
making syrup out of potatoes. The only mural painting in the German 
pavilion is on the northern wall above the portal, and represents a 
longitudinal section of an armored turret for coast defense, constructed 
by Friedrich Krupp. 

Saturday, the 26th of August, was known as Machinery hall day, when was 
given the first of a series of entertainments in connection with the main 
departments of the Fair. At nine o'clock, when the great chime of bells 
rang forth from the tower, the building was already filled, and soon 
afterward was densely crowded, thousands passing in and out in one 
unbroken stream. At noon were songs by jubilee singers, and an hour later, 
diving exhibitions in the lagoon which flanks the Machinery building. 
First was illustrated the system of telephoning under water, as adopted by 
the Russian naval school at Cronstadt, the diver, one Assenig 
Korotaeffsky, encasing himself in a diving suit, weighted with lead, and, 
as he sank and emerged from the water, suggesting that a new species of 
sea-serpent had been added to the World's Fair exhibits. Then came a 
pitched battle between crews selected from the boiler and engine-rooms, 
attired in bathing suits, and placed on board scows forty feet apart. Both 
were supplied with hoses to which a pressure of eighty pounds was 
furnished by Worthington pumps, and at a given signal the fight began, 
victory declaring for the crew that should knock its opponents overboard 
into the lagoon. The captain of one of the boats weighed about 300 pounds, 
and as he stood grasping his hose, arrayed in a close-fitting suit with 
alternate stripes of black and red, his appearance was greeted with roars 
of merriment. After a brief but spirited contest, his men were worsted, 
and their scow began to sink, the fat man betaking himself and his 300 
pounds to shore as best he could. This was followed by an aquatic contest 
between two companies of so-called royal horse marines, with brooms as 
weapons, and steeds in the shape of barrels, sufficiently weighted, and 
with imitation heads and tails. After this was a greased pole performance, 
several competitors for the prizes which hung at its end, suspended over 
the pond, receiving instead a fresh water bath, among them the fat man, 
who after a futile attempt plunged like a porpoise into the lagoon. Other 
diversions followed, accompanied with music, and special exhibits of 
machinery in motion. 

Notes

1. As an instance of the decadence of British manufactures, due largely to 
American competition, it may be stated that the production of raw and 
manufactured iron has diminished considerably within recent years, while 
that of Bessemer steel has barely held its own. Of iron ores the imports 
fell from more than 4,000,000 tons in 1889 to less than 3,200,000 tons in 
1891. Of blast furnaces there were on an average 445 in operation during 
the former year, against 373 in the latter, and from 4,651 puddling 
furnaces in 1883, the number decreased to 3,015 in 1890. The entire 
exports of British merchandise shows a small loss for the ten years ending 
with 1892, and a more serious loss since 1890. In the export of textile 
fabrics, however, there was a decided gain, textile manufactures affording 
employment or support to no less than 5,000,000 people, and with an 
invested capital of $100,000,000.