THE WISCONSIN FARMER.



excels, not only in respect of strength and du-
rability, but likewise in artistic form and fin-
ish. There are exceptions, now and then, in
favor of France and the United States, but as a
general statement the above is correct. Indeed,
if to the thoroughness and mechanical honesty
of the English manufacturer could be added
the superior ingenuity and aptness of the Yan-
kee and the exquisite taste of the French me-
chanic, the product of his workmanship would
be about as perfect as the present condition of
the sciences would allow.
  Good material and good honest workmanship
characterize the hardware on exhibition.
  Warner's chime of steel bells attracted great
attention and were possessed of high merit.
They are so arranged in connection with a cyl-
inder armed with points, like the cylinder of a
music-box, that any ordinary workman could
chime them as perfectly as the most skillful
musician.
  The show of marbleized mantles is very fine;
of steel implements and cutlery of all kinds,
the finest I ever saw.  Here are likewise im-
mense quantities of other articles of hardware
-steel pens, pins, needles, hooks, crinolines,
files, springs, disc wheels, saws, iron safes,
despatch boxes, lightning conductors, metallic
cords, woven wires, wire ropes, hinges, locks,
anchors, cables, railway fastenings, gates, (cast
and wrought) bird cages, kitchen ranges,
scales, hollow ware, anvils, axletrees, horse-
shoes, ice-chests, traps, handcuffs, metallic
bedsteads, gas meters, brass chandeliers, can-
delabras, and ten thousand other things-
enough in all to set up a hundred princely
wholesale establishments with stock enough to
last till the end of the American War!
  Sheffield, as of old, excels in cutlery, Bir-
mingham in heavy iron, steel and brass work,
and in electroplated ware.  Iron and brass
bedsteads are popular everywhere in England,
and seem bound, in time, to entirely supercede
wooden ones.  Some of the brass bedsteads
were massive and could not have Cost less than
two or three thousand dollars!



MILITARY ENGINEERINo, ARMOR AND ACCOUTRE-
     MENTS, ORDNANCE AND SMALL ARMS.
  Under the bead of Military Engineering, the
most interesting works are a ", Military Model
of London and adjacent country," and a model
of a "fBattery for the protection of River
mouths and Harbors."
  The Nodel of London illustrates a projected
line of defences round London, consisting of
nine forts connected by redoubts and earth-
works, enclosing an area of 22 by 14 miles-
the forts and lines to mount 2,151 guns, at an
expense of over $20,000,000.
  Englandl having an insular position, so long
as she was mistress of the seas by virtue of
her powerful navy, she was safe from all for-
eign aggression, and had no need, therefore,
to plant defences about her capital.  Her
"wooden walls" were sufficient.  But now
that other nations, our own particularly, seem
destined to wrest from her hand the trident of
the seas, it may be well enough for her to hedge
old London round about with forts and brist-
ling cannon.
  The Battery for the Protection of River mouths
and harbors is somewhat after the I" Monitor"
idea. It consists of a round iron tower with-
in a tank-the latter hidden below the water-
line and filled with water, the tower floating
in part within this tank and kept in its posi-
tion by rollers at the sides and the axis upon
which it revolves in the centre. The roof is
conical. The tower is to revolve as fast as the
guns are fired.
  fleavy Ordnance is here in all its superiority
-Armstrong guns, Whitworth guns, and oth-
ers.  Both of the guns named have a world-
wide reputation.
  The gun invented by Sir William Armstrong
and now manufactured by him on an immense
scale at Woolwich and at Newcastle-on-Tyne,
combines length of range, lightness of metal,
and extraordinary projectile force. The coil
principle is a distinctive feature, the applica-
tion of which is thus explained: A bar of iron
is twisted round an iron roller spirally, and
then welded down solid into a continuous cyl-



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