Reports by the juries. Class IV. Animal and vegetable substances chiefly used in manufactures, as implements, or for ornaments / Richard Owen, Edward Solly, reporters.

  • Owen, Richard, Sir, 1804-1892.
Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports by the juries. Class IV. Animal and vegetable substances chiefly used in manufactures, as implements, or for ornaments / Richard Owen, Edward Solly, reporters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    JURY RESOLVED ITSELF INTO TWO COMMITTEES, &c. [Class IV. The value of every organic product in commerce is much influenced by the mode of its collection, or removal from the animal or plant when developed, and by the processes for separating the useless or less valuable parts or hetero- geneous matters from the marketable constituent. In the sense in which the term “ Raw Material has been extended in its application to that section of the Exhibition assigned to the Jury of Class IV., great scope for both chemical and mechanical skill has been afforded in the extraction and preparation of several of the Vegetable and Animal substances applied “ in Manufactures, as Implements, or for Ornaments.” In the examination and comparison of the very numerous and diversified substances confided to their judgment, this Jury have been guided and influenced by the consideration of the invention, ingenuity, skill, and industry manifested in the amelioration and perfection of these several substances, and by the degrees in which unfavourable conditions of soil and climate have been thereby overcome : and in deciding on individual merit, they have carefully taken into account the natural facilities which may have favoured, and the natural difficulties which may have opposed, the realization of the desired qualities in the raw produce transmitted for exhibition. After a preliminary general survey of their field of operations had shown its vast extent and the great practical importance of the objects to be compared, the Jury, having regard also to the earnest desire expressed for expedition in their decisions, resolved themselves into two Committees, one for the Vegetable, the other for the Animal Kingdom ; reviewing and testing from time to time in general meetings the evidence of the special examinations confided to those Committees. In preparing their Report of the results of these labours, it has been deemed advisable to divide it into corresponding sections, the classification of the subjects in each being made, as far as it was practicable, in accordance with that of the original “ Jury Lists the chief differences being, that—“Dextrine” or starch-gum, and “ Starch ” as employed in manufactures, have been added to the “ Gum and Resin ” series, at the recommendation of the Jury of Class III., and that spermaceti, stearine, stearic acid, with the consideration of the various processes, partly chemical and partly mechanical, employed in the preparation of these substances, have been referred to the Jury of Class XXIX., in relation to the manufacture of candles and other practical applications of these substances, already under the review of that Jury. The “Vegetable Charcoal” has been added to the “ Animal Charcoal,” at the request of the Jury of Class I. “ Quills ” were transferred to other articles of stationery, the subjects of Class XVII. Lastly, the subdivision C, including the “Vegetable Acids,” such as acetic, citric, tartaric, oxalic, and other organic acids employed in the arts being, in almost all cases, the products of distinct chemical operations, have been brought under the consideration of the Jury of Class II. Subject to these changes, therefore, in the list of objects originally assigned to this Class, the present Report will be subdivided, as respects the Vegetable Kingdom, into eight heads, and as respects the Animal Kingdom into five heads; with a preliminary section explanatory of the grounds on which the awards of the Council Medal have been recommended.