THE SYDNEY EXHIBITION.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1768, 20 October 1879, Page 3

THE SYDNEY EXHIBITION.

Fifth Notice, [from the press correspondent J The galleries are still in a half and half condition, and some of the allotment of space in them appears to have been anything but judicious. For instance, up to tho left of the organ, in the nave gallery, about thirty yards of wall space have been given to Collins, the Glasgow publisher, who has beautified (?) that space by hanging thereon a whole series of the most intensely commonplace school maps and diagrams. Further on are some very good specimens of model school furniture and appliances, including a capital affair, a big black globe, say four feet in diameter, properly mounted so as to revolve, and marked with lines of latitude and longitude, which would be a most serviceable adjunct to the educational fittings of any school, as the continents and so on can be outlined on it with chalk, and rubbed out again, in the same way as diagrams on the ordinary blackboard. The school furnishings are just as good —solid wood and iron, not to be readily damaged or broken. For each pupil (here is a neat solid and comfortable seat with a back to support the young spine, and a desk facing the seat has a slate let into the middle of the flap, so that it cannot be dropped, clattered, or broken, and serves as part of tho surface of the desk for copy-book, writing, &o. An ink well and pen trough aro also parts of the desk, which forms also a receptacle for books. A great deal of ingenuity has been exercised in this furniture, in more ways than it is convenient to describe here. The Howe sewing machine has a temple to itself in this gallery also, presided over by a comely and business-like young priestess. I had some amusement in watching various young and middle-aged bucks approach this shrine on a transparent pretext of having conscientious opinions about sewing machines, but really to worship the priestess. She invariably exposed the hollowness of their pretensions by one simple process. She listened to all their blatant fervor about.sewing machines, and explained the details of mechanism, and as soon as they began to show a disposition to wander into general or amatory subjects, she simply asked them if she could take their order for one to be sent to their address. She said it would be a pleasant surprise-gift for their wives. They generally caught sight of a friend they wanted to speak to just at this point, and went off in a hurry, leaving the fair priestess perfectly composed, and with just a faint smile on her countenance. In another gallery round tho corner stands a flue collection of telegraphic appliances sent by the Telegraph department of New South Wales. I shall not pretend to give a particular description of these, further than just to mention that appliances for quadruplex telegraphy are among them. Tho gallery over the Now Zealand court, and adotted to the mineral display of your colony, and to the combined collection of native weapons, appliances, &e., from all Australasia and Oceania, which is to be under Dr. Hector’s charge, was closed against the public on Saturday last, which was the day of my latest inspection, and only the show cases for the minerals were yet in the place. At one corner, indeed, there is a skeleton of a moa without a head, looking shockingly lonely and low-soirited. In tho opposite gallery, the New South Wales folks have a trophy of timber, anything but tasteful in appearance, and there are also there some frightful drawings from the round, the work of pupils in the New South Wales Academy of Art. Several English gunmakers’ show-cases have been located there also, for no apparent reason, and deserve a word of mention. The exhibiting firms are Greener and Grant, Scott and Son, Soper, Lewis, and Bealby and Blayford, All show good weapons, breech-loading fowlingpieces, rifles and revolvers, but undoubtedly Greener’s hammerless guns and Soper’s rifle put all the rest out of court. Greener’s latest invention has been so pushingly advertised, at any rate in Sydney, that I don’t suppose I need say much in the way of description. Briefly, it is a double-barrel breech-loading fowling-piece, to which the firing principle of the needle rifle has been applied, so that the charge is exploded by a thrust from a needle or plunger, which forms part of the lock mechanism hidden in the grip part of the stock, and consequently there are no hammers to catch in hedges or long grass and occasion fatal accidents. The Soper rifle is not exactly a novelty. Its great feature lies in the breech arrangement, which is thrown open by pressing a lever with the thumb while, if preferred, keeping tho rifle at tho firing position. Great rapidity in discharging consecutive shots is claimed for this rifle, and a challenge to a competition for £IOO, open to all magazine and other breechloading rifles, was issued by Mr Soper without securing a contest. I daresay it may bo the quickest firing rifle at present invented for anything over thirty-four shots, but for that and smaller numbers, I suspect the Evans’ magazine rifle, which is not shown in tho Exhibition, but may be seen in the gunmakers’ windows, and the Winchester repeater which I described the other day, would be more rapid. On the whole, however, the galleries as yet show but a disjointed array of exhibits, and piece-meal description is unsatisfactory. The basement is in a similar condition. It is being got gradually into order, but as yet the disposition of tho exhibits there is not much bolter than ombryotic. Your own court is not by any means fairly dcscribablo, even ns regards the main floor display. It looks very well, and since I last wrote its attractions have boon immensely enhanced by a great number of pictures having been hung. I have also been, by the kindness of Dr. Hector, favored with a proof copy of tho complete catalogue. But unluckily the numbered labels or tickets to correspond with the catalogue aro not yet attached to the exhibits, so that it is only in exceptional instances that exhibits can be identified. I may, however, make this general remark, that even tho fine series of coloured photographs in tho Queensland court, to which I referred in my first instalment of descriptive writing, are now eclipsed by tho beautiful original paintings representing scones in New Zealand which beautify the walls of your court. Your scenery is truly marvellous in its varied beauty and grandeur, and evidently the attractions offered by Nature have drawn to you whatever artistic talent has been floating about the Southern Hemisphere. In a future, and probably a concluding, paper I hope to bo able to enter into particulars with regard to tho New Zealand Court, and at tho same time to finish off the galleries and basement. In the meantime, the description I first gave of the exhibits iu tho nave will require some additions, as that portion of the building has undergone great changes since the opening day. Tho whole length of the portion of the navo north of the dome was kept void of exhibits in order to afford uninterrupted space for the opening ceremonial, and is now nearly filled up with trophies and

the dome, has received so many additions to its contents as to be almost equally altered. 1 shall, however, only mention a few of the most notable of these new exhibits. Foremost is the show-case trophy of the Waltham Wateh Company of America, which is presided over by a brisk and intelligent Yankee. The velvet tiers in this show-case are covered with magnificent gold and silver watches in infinite variety of make and case. The person in charge explained the advantages of the make and mechanism, and demonstrated the magnificence of particular watches. One instance will suffice, I dare say. He took from the collection a gold watch in a chased case, with self-winding stem. Turning the stem ring downward he pressed the stem in the usual fashion,land the front cover opened. Turning the ring upwards ho pressed again, and the back cover flew open. By one simple adjustment he made the stem wind the watch. Ey pressing a stud in the rim ho made it move the hands. At the back was a second glazed face, with a long second hand revolving. A touch at a stud stopped it instantaneously, and as the dial is marked to the fifteenth part of a second, the applicability for timing races, and other nice time tests was obvious enough, When released this hand did not go on, it returned instantaneously to zero, ready to start again when liberated, thus saving calculation in the case of two events immediately succeeding one another. The price was £4O. On the same platform is a similar show case belonging to another American Company, the Gorham Silversmithing works of Providence and Now York, whose speciality is sterling silver ware, of which, and of high class plated goods similar in design, they have a fine show. They distribute a pamphlet, from which I think the following pregnant paragraph well worthy of quotation : “ The American Silversmith, untrammelled by the demoralising effects of Trade Union Societies, has been free to develop his branch of industry in every conceivable way. The workmen are intelligent to a remarkable degree ; temperate and industrious, and are to a great extent owners of their own homesteads.”

Tho exhibits of this company comprise every article usually made iu silver for table use, and present an infinity of new and elegant patterns. Of spoons and forks for instance there are no less than twenty-four different patterns. The standard of silver used is superior to steTing, being nearly pure, 9251000 fine. Messrs Marcus Ward and Co., of London, stationers, &0., are erecting a huge, ugly screen, enclosing a large area in this part of the nave, and effectually blocking out the view of the orchestra, and obstructing the light in the vicinity. General complaint and disgust has boon occasioned by the appearance of this structure, and report goes that the Commissioners will even now take heart of grace and order its removal. Tho local commission in London are responsible for authorising t, and I may as well mention bore that the same body, or rather Sir Daniel Cooper, their president, is responsible for foisting upon the exhibition the so-called grand organ. This proves to be a trumpery broken-down affair, some fifty years old ; not even a large or powerful instrument, and so out of repair and worn that it has coat over £2OO to patch it up before it could be used at all. The cost in London was £6OO, and a practical organ builder whom I came across, aud who had opportunities of seeing what tho thing’s condition was while it was being patched up and put together here, tells me that the Commissioners will be lucky if, after the Exhibition is over, they succeed in getting anyone to give them for it as much as it has cost in putting together and tinkering here ! The gin trophy under the dome is to be abolished, I hear. In that locality there has now been placed some magnificent electroplate duplicates of some of the gold State services of her Majesty the Queen, very gorgeous and splendid, both as regards bulk and workmanship. A bronze half-size statue of an Indian (South American) bowman is also placed here very appropriately. It is a most spirited work, with equal grace and energy in the pose ; and the archer seems to bo about to discharge his arrow up into the lofty dome. Several additional Italian sculptures are also disposed around here. They are in marble, accurately handsome, but strike me as somewhat conventional and inanimate.

Proceeding up the other branch of the nave the minerals of Now South Wales are displayed in glazed oases, and some rich auriferous quartz has generally a group of admirers. In the centre of this lot of exhibits, the Sydney Mint has stationed a beautiful machine for testing sovereigns. A sort of trough or barrel carries a column of coins to the weighing mechanism in rapid succession. Arrived there tho delicate adjustment accepts or rejects them according as they are accurate in weight or otherwise, the correct coins going into one receptacle, the heavy ones into another, and the light ones into a third. The working of the machine, effected by hydraulic force derived from the ordinary pressure of the city water service, is very neat and interesting. Further on there is a gold obelisk from one of the up-country gold districts, and handsome trophies of copper and tin ingots. Next comes a grand affair constructed of kerosene shale, from the Hartley mines in this colony. It must be remarked that great quantities of kerosene of first-rate quality—the Comet brand—are manufactured from this shale at works towards Botany, a few miles out of Sydney. The Belgian iron and steel trophies, already described, come next, and then two stupendous pagodas, containing biscuits from the Victorian factories of Guest, and of Swallow and Ariel respectively. Tho Melbourne Preserve Company has also a very fine showcase here, and then comes a collection of bronzes belonging to the French court, and the southern door is reached.