PREFACE.
By a Resolve passed at the last day of the session of 1874, the Legislature authorized the Massachusetts Commissioners to the Exposition at Vienna to print a volume of reports collected by them relating to that Exposition.
Some time was unavoidably spent in getting together articles not at that time entirely completed, and also in preparing the necessary cuts; but the work has been pushed on as rapidly as possible, and is herewith presented.
It is believed the articles which follow, on special topics, will compare favorably with most of this class of literature, and will be read with interest. If they do something to stimulate further perfection in the manufactures in which we already excel, or to add to our taste for art, in which we are far behind foreign countries, then the Commission will not have been sent out in vain. It is hoped they will do both.
H. A. HILL.