[Anon.], ‘Memorable Things in the Great Exhibition’, Visitor, or Monthly Instructor (1851)

This chapter explores some of the most impressive exhibits, such as the Jacquard looms, the Britannia Bridge, the machinery for making paper and the steam press that printed The Times at an astonishing rate. The beautiful silk machinery in motion, attended by its proper factory operatives, has attracted just notice in the Exhibition. Various silk-winding machines, spinning and doubling machines, and so on are exhibited, as well as that most ingenious and wonderful machine, the Jacquard loom. The Exhibition also contains magnificent specimens of floor-cloth. Among the machines exhibited, there is one which calls to mind the most triumphant engineering exploit of modern times – the huge hydrostatic press employed in raising the tubes of the Britannia Bridge, a model of which is also exhibited. The chapter shows another great national work, the Plymouth breakwater that is erected across the mouth of Plymouth harbour.