of
those, and so will ultimately be regarded. Looking to-day at Mitchell's
admirable new Map of the United States and their Territories, as now
existing, which worthily fills an honorable place in the Exhibition,
with several but too few others of the same class, I could not but
regret that a set of Harpers' Common School Libraries, with a brief
account of the origin and progress of our School Library system, had not
been contributed; and I wish I had myself spent fifty dollars if
necessary to place in the Exhibition a good collection of American
School Books. If there shall ever be another World's Exhibition, I
bespeak a conspicuous place in it for a model American country
School-House, with its Library, Globes, Maps, Black-Board, Class Books,
&c., and a succinct account of our Common School system, printed in the
five or six principal languages of Europe for gratuitous distribution to
all who may apply for it. With this got up as it should be, I would not
mind admitting that in Porcelain and Laces, Ormolu and Trinkets, Europe
is yet several years ahead of us.

Mr. J. S. Gwynne of our State, whose "Balanced Centrifugal Pump" made a
sensation and obtained a Gold Medal at our Institute Fair last October,
is here with it, and proposes a public trial of its qualities in
competition with the rival English pumps of Appold and Bessimer for
$1,000, to be paid by the loser to the Mechanics' Society. Mr. Gwynne
claims that these English Pumps (which have been among the chief
attractions of the department of British Machinery) are palpable
plagiarisms from his invention, and not well done at that. He, of
course, does not claim the idea of a Centrifugal Pump as his own, for it
is much older than any of them, but he does claim that adaptation of the
idea which has rendered it effective and valuable. I am reliably
informed that he has just sold his Scotch patent only for the
comfortable sum of L10,000 sterling, or nearly $50,000; and this is but
one of several inventions for which he has found a ready market here at
liberal prices. I cite his case (for he is one of several Americans who
have recently sold their European patents here at high figures) as a
final answer to those who croak that our country is disgraced, and
regret that any American ever came near the Exhibition. Had these
discerning and patriotic gentlemen been interested in these patents,
they might have taken a different view of the matter. Even my New-York
friend, w