Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1876 — CENTENNIALITIES. [ARTICLE]

CENTENNIALITIES.

—The total cash receipts at the Exposition up to July 26 were SOOB,OOO, and the total number of visitors 2,435,000. No greatrush of visitors is expected until about September 1. —Referring to the base slander that the woman’s pavilion at the Centennial is very dirty, the Rochester Democrat asks in an angry tone if one can strike for freedom and do housework at the same time. —One of the most interesting features of the Centennial Exhibition is the unusual space given to showing methods of education. Several foreign countries, including Sweden and Japan, show remarkable proficiency. —“’’Oh,” cries a Chicago girl, writing from the Centennial, “ what a vari-colored circle of humanity is here! Dark men from Italy, Spain and the South; blonde men from Scotland, Sweden and the North; pink-faced men from the rural rigions of Germany and Belgium; blue-veined men from Austria ana France; yellow men from the Oriental countries, and red men from the plains of the West! Truly, the Centennial has brought us a great rain of the reigning beaux of rainbow-hued humanity!” —At the Exposition grounds, in order to reduce the expenses, some thirty men have been discharged. Of these, there were three inspectors, nine moneygatekeepers, nine at the exhibitors’ gates, eight at the wagon gates, and four return pass and check men; and of 106 turnstiles around the inclosure, forty-six have been closed. The falling off in the attendance at the Exhibition has caused the reduction of the force. The number of visitors fell off materially duiing the heated term, and has not increased with the return of pleasant weather. —The great Krnpp gun attheCentennial Exhibition and the armor-plates in the British section are mere pigmies when compared with projected guns and armor plates. The Russian iron-clad Peter the Great has been planned to carry twentyinch armor, and the English eighty-one ton gun, firing a shotof 1,200 pounds, has been made with the expectation that its shot can pierce twenty inches of armor. Sir W. G. Armstrong is trying his skill on a seventeen-inch gun that wiß carry a 2,000 pound shot, and Mr. Fraser, at Woolwich, has suggested a 100-ton gun to cany a shot of 2,240 pounds. Sir Joseph Whitworth proposes, by, the use of a hexagonal bore of compressed steel and a flat-

headed elongated shot, to make a gun of less weight than eiglity-one tons which shall smash an armor plate of twenty-tour inches in thickness. Mr. Krupp has actually begun to make a monster of 160 tons; but there i* aa yet no ship stout enough to accommodate this piece of colossal ordnance. At present the big guns have the best of the armor-plate, but it is not long since twenty inches of armor-plate had the advantage of the most powerful guns of the day—those which could penetrate fourteen Inches of plate.— Philadelphia Ledger. —An incident happened in Machinery Hall yesterday afternoon which exhibits the unparalleled advancement of American genius in small as well as in great things. Whllf a large throng of visitors were standing around the mighty Corliss engine, watching its gigantic movements, a tall, gentle-manly-looking personage, who afterward gave his name and address as Levi Taylor, of Indianola.lowa. joined the crowd. After watching the motions of the monster for a few moments the gentleman passed around to one side, ana extracting from his pocket a small tin case took from it what looked like a diminutive alcohol lamp, and, striking a match, started a miniature flame and placed the contrivance on a corner of the platform which surrounds the mighty steam giant. At first glance nothing could be discerned over this lamp but a small excrescence which looked more like a very juvenile humming bird than anything else, but a close inspection showed that what was mistaken for a liliputian wing was the fly-wheel of a perfect steam engine, and persons with extra good eyes could, after a close examination, discover some of the other harts of the curious piece of mechanism. •This engine has for its foundation a •Twenty-flve-cent gold piece, and many of the parts are so tiny that they cannot be seen without a magnifying glass. It has the regular steam gauge, ana, though qomplete m every particular, the entire apparatus weighs only seven grains, while the engine proper weighs but three grains. It is made of gold, steel and platinum. The fly-wbeel is only three-quarters of an inch in diameter; the stroke is one-twenty-fourth of an inch, and the cut-off one-sixty-fourth of an inch. The machinery, which can all be taken apart; was packed in films of silk.— Philadelphia Press.