avenue:
The myriads stir below,
As hives of coral grow--
Vaulted above, like them, with a fresh sea of blue.

CHARLES DE KAY.

THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878.

IV.--MACHINERY.

[Illustration: APPLEBY'S STEAM-CRANE, WITH FIXED JIB FOR USE ON
TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT TRACK.]

The machinery in the Paris Exposition covers a larger space than any
other of the eight departments of material, machinery and products which
occupy the buildings and annexes. The ninth department, Horticulture, is
outdoors on the grounds or in greenhouses. Foreign machinery has about
half the space, and French machinery the remainder. Few countries are
without annexes, the space allotted to each, though supposed to be
ample, being utterly insufficient to hold the multitude of objects
presented.

In preference to taking the classes of machinery in turn, and visiting
the various nations in search of exemplars of the classes in rotation,
it will be more interesting to take the nations in order and arrive at
an idea of the rate and direction of their relative progress, modified
so largely by the respective natural productions of the countries and by
the habits and degrees of civilization of their inhabitants. When put to
a trial of its strength, each nation naturally brings forward the
matters in which it particularly excels.

Prominent in the section of the Netherlands, the name so descriptive of
the land where not less than two hundred and twenty-three thousand acres
are below the level of the sea and kept constantly drained by artificial
means, are the engineering and mechanical devices for the reclamation
and preservation of land, the formation of outlet-canals for the centres
of commerce, and the bridging of the rivers and estuaries which
intersect the maritime portions of the country. Some of the models and
relief-maps were shown in the Netherlands section in the Main Building
at Philadelphia, but the exhibition is more perfect here, as much has
been added in the two intervening years.

The works for the drainage of the Haarlemmer Meer illustrate the means
employed for the last great drainage-work completed. This lake had an
area of 45,230 acres, an average depth of seventeen feet below low
water, and was drained between 1848 and 1853. Being diked to exclude the
waters which naturally flowed into it, three large engines were built in
different places around it, and the work of pumping out 800,000,000 tons
of water comm