RAW MATERIALS, MACHINERY, AND PROCESSES CONNECTED WITH FOOD, RURAL On the recent Improvements in the construction of Ovens for Baking Application of Gluten for the manufacture of various articles of Food. New yellow variety of Sugar Beet Loss sustained by Coffee in roasting 313 293 346 Mode of preventing the Potatoe Disease 120 On the substances best adapted to pre- vent the Putrefaction of Animal Mat- Method to prevent the decomposition of BULLETIN OF INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS. Belgium.-Condition of the General Commerce in 1851 Classification of the Special Commerce in 1851 Flax Improvement Society, Statistical facts from Fourteenth Report of,-Effects of the War upon the Imports of Flax; the Irish Flax Crop of 1854; the Society's Practical Instruction; Markets in new districts of the South and West; Saving of Seed; New Scutch Mills erected; Exports of Irish Flax and BULLETIN OF Industrial STATISTICS, continued. Scotland.-Cost of producing Iron in Scotland compared with that in Silesia, and with the most improved system of Charcoal Smelting 157 Condition of Manufacturing Industry in 1851 Condition of Mining and Metallurgic Industry in 1850 United States of America.-Commerce in the years 1850-51 American Navigation :-General Navigation Total Effective Commercial Navy Financial condition of the five great arteries of communication THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS. No. I. JANUARY, 1854. ART. I. ON THE USES OF INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITIONS;-The Great Industrial Exhibition of 1853, and its influence upon the Development of Industry in Ireland. By SIR ROBERT KANE, F.R.S., M.R.I.A. Ar this time, when the impressions produced upon our minds by the beauty and splendour of the Great Industrial Exhibition are still so vivid, and that its well-merited success forms still the subject of hearty and universal congratulation, as well for the character of our country, as for the liberality of the eminent individual to whom its arrangements were chiefly due, it may not be considered out of place that we should endeavour to lead the public to bestow some thought upon what the Exhibition really signified, and avail ourselves of the interest with which all connected with it is invested, to refer to the practical uses which may be derived from such industrial demonstrations, and in fact to recall the attention of the public from the mere fact of the Exhibition to the objects which the Exhibition was founded to effect. For we have full reason to believe that a very large proportion of the visitors to the Exhibition were led by previous habits, or by the architectural and artistic illusions of the scene, to regard the Exhibition rather as a show than as a study to look upon it not so much as a lesson as a lounge-to consider it decidedly better to have the military bands in the building than in the square, where they should go away if it rained—and to regard the examining of the objects as a concentrated form of shopping, without any implied necessity to buy. But none of these constituted the object for which the Exhibition was opened. The opening of the Great Exhibition of last summer had for its aim the demonstration of the great industrial force which Ireland could bring forward at this time, and its comparison with the industrial capabilities and results of the sister kingdom, and of foreign countries, thereby that we might sce palpably and impartially manifested wherein we may fairly and indisputably claim pre-eminence or credit, where we were powerless or incapable, and that by careful and accurate comparison of our own position as to materials and means, as to skill and taste, we might learn wherein lay our A weakness, and where our strength, and make ourselves ready to apply our industrial energies to those branches that might be found especially adapted to the country, and to ourselves, and avoid wasting our exertions on subjects in which nature denies us success. The best and highest object of the Exhibition was thus one of a practical and national character. There was necessarily associated therewith the very important object of showing to the public at large the great results of industrial invention, the triumphs of skill, and ingenuity, and taste-the highest points attained in ministering to material civilization in the several countries, which few can see, and which, even if seen isolatedly, cannot be appreciated, or their importance felt, as when aggregated in such a Grand Temple of Industry as the Exhibition formed. But naturally where the richest and most important manufactures of England, of France, of Germany, were displayed, the local element of the Exhibition became circumscribed, and to some extent overlaid, the more so as, from our industrial results being as yet but limited in variety and in extent, and also from a somewhat exaggerated spirit of hospitality, putting forward in all prominent places the productions of British and foreign contributors, rather than Irish works, the true amount and value of the products of our own country was not at first seen, and could not be fully appreciated by ordinary visitors. To those, however, who examined into the contents of the Exhibition with proper knowledge and care, the specially Irish portions, whether as raw materials or as finished productions, afforded satisfactory proof of the abundant means for industrial employment with which Providence has blessed our country, and of the capability of our people to carry out iudustrial pursuits, if properly directed. It will be thus seen that we regard the object of the Exhibition to have been essentially that of instruction; and, in fact, we must consider all those accessories which distracted attention from that main and practical object to have been so far injurious to the proper object of the Exhibition. They were, of course, indispensable to its success and popularity under other points of view, and with the crowd, to whom purely instructional or useful objects are not congenial or attractive. Necessarily also in the classification and arrangement of such a gigantic aggregate of dissimilar things, hurriedly got together, and to be as hurriedly dispersed, the great condition of artistic grouping in effective masses predominated over the conditions of scientific arrangement; and the latter could only be observed as far as some general principles of distribution could be followed. This defect, inherent to the nature of so extensive, and so temporary an undertaking (and even more evident in the London Exhibition of 1851), is capable of being avoided only where an Exhibition is organized for purely instructional purposes; where the objects exhibited are admitted only as they serve that view, and where the permanence of the collections admits of such methodical and progressive arrangements as shall enable, not merely the actual condition, but the advance of every important branch of industry, to be shown. But precisely as in this manner the practical utility, as a means of instruction, of such an Exhibition would be enhanced, it might be feared that so would its popularity be diminished with the mass of the |