of which contains a different letter, one tube
being full of a's, another of b's, and so on.
The lower ends of these tubes converge towards
a kind of long narrow trough, in which the words
are to be formed. Suppose that the sentence
"To be, or not to be," has to be printed.
The compositor touches the key marked t, and
instantly a valve is opened at the foot of the tube
holding the t's, and one of them is let down into
the trough. Then he touches the o key, the b
and e keys, and the comma key successively, and
each of the letters descends into the trough and
takes its place next to the last arrival. As each
of the letters joins the others, of course it pushes
those already in the trough onward, till at last a
very long line of printed words, all in their right
order, fills the trough. While you are watching
this beautiful process, and as the trough becomes
fuller and fuller, you find yourself getting into
a state of apprehension that the types will run
out at the other end, and all fall in disorder
on the ground. You need not be alarmed. At
the end of the row of words the compositor
has been forming, is a heavy lead, which is
pushed along further and further as each new
letter is added, until at last it topples over, the
trough being full, and in its fall strikes a bell
placed beneath for the purpose. When the
compositor hears the bell, he knows that the trough
is full; the row of words is removed to the
printing press, and the whole process is
commenced over again with the words next in order.

One can more easily understand this piece of
mechanism, beautiful and intricate as it is, than
the other with which it is connected. The
letters which make up the words "To be, or not
to be," have all got to be separated again, and
put back alphabetically in their places, ready for
use. How is this to be done?

A set of grooves, more than thirty in number,
enough to supply each letter of the alphabet,
and the different notes of punctuation with a
groove each, are set on a circular table: the
grooves radiating towards a common centre, in
which there is a kind of wheel set round with
little receptacles, each of which will hold one
letter and no more. The wheel is set in motion
and begins to revolve. As it does so, each of
these little receptacles comes under a kind of
spout, out of which, one at a time, the letters
fall in order, as they come from the press. The
types fall into these receptacles, and their ends
hang out below. These ends are furnished
with small notches which fit into certain other
notches at the mouths of the radiating grooves,
and all which notches are in level, or some
other way, different. Thus the notches which
fit the end of letter a will not fit the end
of letter b. The letters, then, with their ends
hanging out as described, turn round on the
wheel and come to the mouths of each of the
radiating grooves in succession; but as the
notches at the mouth of each vary, a, cannot
get into b's groove, or c into t's. Each goes on
until it comes to the notch that fits it, by which
it is instantly caught and dragged down: the
wheel going on and the empty receptacle being
filled when it gets under the spout with the
letter next in order.

The excessive delicacy and ingenuity of this
one piece of mechanism incline one to separate
it from the rest, but it is, in truth, not more
wonderful than many of the other machines of
which this annexe is full. What is there that
these machines can not do? From cracking a
nut or winding a ball of cotton, to lifting a
perfect Niagara of water at a stroke, all seems
within reach of their mingled subtlety and
strength.

But the Registrar-General would be poorly
fulfilling his office if he took notice merely of
those matters which everybody else has examined
and approved. It is the duty of such a
functionary to poke into holes and corners and
see what is to be seen there. And still among
the machinery, but neglected and hidden, and
wholly unappreciated, what in pity's name are
these poor little fabrics of tin and wood which
we light upon in a very obscure corner of the
Italian department? Little sorry wares these,
made up of odds and ends of wood and small
scraps of tin, and fashioned in the roughest
way. They look as if they were made by some
workman at his spare moments. Perhaps they
were. Perhaps his wife and children watched
their progress and thought London would be
electrified when these inventions were
displayed before it. They are, it seems, small
models of certain inventions designed to be
made on a larger scale for the benefit of
humanity. Let us read the inscriptions upon
them. One is the "model of an instrument
for smoothing muddi roads with great speed and
economy." Another is "a mechanis that can
be applied to different motory contrivances as
requiring a rotary movement at various distances
and in various directions"! Here, too, is "a
machine for thrusting the grain out of ears of
Indian corn," and also "a machine for an
economical and speedy removal of snow from the
public streets, leaving but a thin layer of it"—
this sounds slippery—"easily swept away."
There is something very pitiful and affecting
about these innocent little models, with their
inscriptions in broken English. There they lie in
an unknown corner, unseen, neglected, like
many another object in this mighty show, which
was expected by the maker of it, and by his
friends, to make an immense sensation. Never
mind; this honest engineer of Pavia may be in
the right road, for aught we know, and may some
day construct a "mechanis" which shall not
only "smooth the muddi roads" of England,
but smooth his own rough road to eminence and
fortune.

To fortune, and to eminence too, the way lies
surely through this Western Annexe. As you
walk up one of its aisles and down another, you
find at one place electricity blazing upon you
with a light stronger than that of an ordinary
day, at another the same power printing the
words of a despatch issued a thousand miles
away, and on which the fate of a nation may
hang. Here, backwards and forwards, like a