Volume 1

Cyclopaedia of useful arts, mechanical and chemical, manufactures, mining, and engineering / edited by Charles Tomlinson.

  • Tomlinson Charles, 1808-1897.
Date:
[1852-1854]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cyclopaedia of useful arts, mechanical and chemical, manufactures, mining, and engineering / edited by Charles Tomlinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the trunk of a Aate-tree, and specimens of sweet palm, acacia, azedarak, and liquorice-wood. Thus from all nations came valuable mementos of the timber, fruit, or other trees for which they are distinguished ; and it needed but a moderate acquaintance with botanical science mentally * to sketch the features of each country from the character of the vegetable products exhibited. The numerous uses of the bark of trees were made conspicuous in the Exhibition ; and that most useful bark of a species of oak, which is familiar to us as cork, was there shov.'n to be capable of conversion into the lightest hats that were ever made, and also into modelled pictures of castles, &c. The colour and structure of the cork admirably represented the time-worn appearance of old buildings. Berlin sent some of these cork pictures ; our own Fine Arts Court also displayed a group of horses carved in cork, and an ornamental frame-work in the same material. The various uses of bark in dyeing and tanning were indicated by the large coUec- tion sent by the London druggists, as well as by an immense number of specimens scattered throughout the several departments of the Exhibition, many of which must have excited the interest and curiosity of our manvifacturers by their novelty, and by the strange names attached to them. Among the lower tribes of exogenous plants are some that found representatives in the Exhi- bition, although the general character of the particular group would not have led us to look for any of its members among the useful products there. Thus, the nettle tribe furnished hemp, and the so-called China-grass, which has of late years been so much valued in the manufacture of linen. Hemp was fully represented by the beautiful display of cordage and sailcloth in the' Exhibition; while the stalk, seed, and capsule of China-grass were shown, along with the fibre in all its stages, bleached, softened, dyed, spun, and woven into linen. The spurges gave both the milky juice that forms India-rubber, and also the oils, which, as croton and castor oil, are so serviceable in medicine. They furnished also a vegetable tallow, much valued in China. India-rubber was largely displayed by the United States and by Great Britain, and if the India- rubber trophy of the former was deemed unsightly in the prominent position assigned to it in the nave, it had at least the merit of presenting'some valuable adaptations of that useful mate- rial. A relation of the pretty mezereon of our gardens gave the beautiful fibrous tissue known as lace-bark. The lavender and other herbs yielded fragrant volatile oils; the fox-glove, night- shade, and tobacco, deadly poisons; the gentians, valuable tonics. Olive oil, and the oil called shea-butter, the produce of an African plant, were exhibited. So likewise was gutta percha, that valuable exudation from a plant related to the last named. Among the higher tribes, the composite plants gave dyes, food, and medicine. From the distance of Sparta and Moldavia came safflower, which furnishes rouge; and from Russia and other quarters came chicory, the recognised adulterant of coffee. From Ceylon, Trinidad, and various other places, came also coffee itself, that valuable member of the madder tribe, far more to be prized than the dyes for whicli the same tribe is celebrated. Among the curiosities connected with coffee in the Exhibition were specimens of essence of coffee, prepared by a peculiar machine, and a preparation of the leaves of the coffee plant for use as a beverage tea. Also a series of interesting models from Ceylon of coffee stores, drying platforms, machinery for removing the outer and inner skin, and coffee-curing apparatus. The umbelliferous plants furnished many valuable roots; myrtles appeared as forest trees; roses gave delicious attars; pulse yielded food, dyeing and tanning materials, gums and balsams. Beans, peas, and other leguminous products valuable as food, were abundantly sliown in our own and many foreign departments. Of dyeing materials—from Trinidad came logwood, from South America Brazil-wood, from India, Egypt, Tunis, &o. came indigo. From all quarters came the gums and resins, the bal- sams and varnishes which are obtained from the same tribe. Not far from these, another and a smaller group sent a product which at the present time detains the serious attention of prac- tical men, on account of the new promise of advantage held forth to om- country in its culture under improved methods and prospects. This product is flax, of which a most interesting dis- play was made at the Exhibition, as well of the raw product as of the finished material obtained from it. Beautiful yarns and rovings of flax, sewing thread of a superior quality manufactured from flax and China-gi-ass, and all the varieties of flax cotton, flax flannel, flax velvet, and other