REPORT OF MR. ELMER P. HOWE.
429
AMERICAN IDEAS IN EUROPEAN MACHINERY*
BY ELMER P. HOWE.
Group XIII.—Machinery.
The first impression of an American, entering the Machinery hall at the Exposition, was one of disappointment. Outside the American department, there was a conspicuous lack of novelty in the exhibited objects. In the small space allotted to the United States, there was more to attract the thoughtful, or the casual visitor, than in all the long hall beyond. The reason for this is not hard to find. For, laying aside certain tools which are adapted for the use of some particular country, there was no machinery but such as was well known in the United States, and such valuable improvements of late date ns appeared, were generally of American invention, or have been adopted and to some extent developed in American practice.
It will not, I trust, savor of a boastful spirit to briefly examine the prominent mechanical exhibits with the view of discovering to what extent ideas from this country have been employed. In this attempt, as it will be almost impossible to
* While to Europeans the American department of the Machinery hall was by far the most interesting, from the great number of novel and labor-saving inventions it contained, the rest of the long building, was equally striking to the American visitor, from the lack of original machinery. The peculiar ability of the American mind in the matter of invention, is, for the first time, fully realized, in passing through the foreign departments. Coupled with this poverty of inventions of their own, the visitor from this country was struck with the frequency with which he came across well- known American ideas and machines among the exhibits of the different European nations. So common was this that the commission thought it worth while to suggest an examination of the Exhibition, with a view of presenting a brief catalogue of •American inventions which have within a few years been adopted in Europe. This kas been done partly Avith a vieAv.of showing hoAv grand a field the Old World Avould become for our inventors, could some reasonable patent protection be had in Europe. From this examination the folloAving article arose.— Editor.