Rimmel, Eugene: Recollections of the Paris exhibition of 1867 (London, 1868)

^COLLECTIONS OF

CHAPTER IV.

THE MACHINERY GALLERY.

In all Exhibitions, the Machinery Department, notwithstanding
the deafening noise which assail the ears and the nauseous
smell which pervades the atmosphere, is a great centre of
attraction. Men and women, old and young, rich and poor,
seem alike interested in studying these wonderful achieve-
ments of men's genius which make up for his weakness, to
watch those iron arms which are never unnerved by toil,
those stalwart giants who defy all resistance, in fact those
wonders of mechanism which have replacedrthe fatiguing and
irregular action of hand-work by the uniform and productive
labour of machinery.

There is besides about this spot the great allurement of
" things in motion " compared with the stillness of other
parts of the Exhibition. In the latter, people can see what
has been done, in the, former they are shown how it is done.
At one end of the machine they watch as it enters a rough
unshaped mass

Rudis indigestaque moles;

at the other end thjey see it issue a bright perfect object of
utility or ornament.

As we said before, we shall first examine the French sec-
tion in this and other departments, and the foreign sections
will come after, under the respective head of their countries.