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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
After making a hurried survey of the whole Exhibition, which required more than one week, the time that remained— about three weeks—was mostly devoted to textile industry as there represented in various ways, upon which a brief report will now be given.
Writers for the press, and others, have described the general plan and arrangement of the Exhibition, which was -in twenty-six groups, with numerous additional exhibitions.
Group V. was Textile Industry and Clothing.
It is said by those who had the best opportunities for observing, and it is an unquestioned fact, that never at any previous Exhibition was textile industry so prominently represented, or its importance so well shown, as at the Vienna Universal Exhibition. Never before* was there brought to- gether a series of exhibits so complete, or so significant of progress in the various branches of this industry. Its almost numberless branches .were clearly shown, and the relation between textile and other industries was distinctly expressed. .
Although, in our modern civilization, it is understood that coal, iron and textile fibres range in importance in the order here mentioned, the textile industry claimed much space, and was more prominent than any other at Vienna.
It was no easy task to obtain a general view of this department, as the various exhibits belonging to it were widely separated, and in several buildings. The Agricultural Halls contained a variety of raw materials, and machines for cultivating the same; there were many things in the Machinery Halls belonging to textile industry; and the great Industry Palace contained an immense and somewhat confusing collection of textile fabrics from all parts of the world, including articles of utility, of ornament, and of luxury.
A careful examination of all these exhibits, and the preparation of an elaborate report thereon, would have been a labor of several months for more than one man. It would have necessitated a thorough investigation of a great variety of raw materials, to ascertain the new channels they open for manufacturing operations; the examination of numberless textile fabrics, to obtain from them evidence of mechanical progress and chemical development in this branch of man-