Switzerland - Austria - Expo Paris 1867

With Switzerland came the activity of large-scale industry: the four-shuttle looms, the warpers of Gaspard Honegger of Zurich, the silk mills of Wegmann and Co. of Baden, and the embroidery machine of Jacob Rieter of Wintertbur. Now the looms work alone. The needles are pushed by an iron hand that becomes more flexible and lighter than the hand of a skilled worker, and in a few seconds, with a speed that is like a miracle, one sees the flowers swell the tile and appear to the astonished eyes; but fortunately the tool, however well trained, is not yet the sovereign master, and in the steep meadows of the Alps, the mechanical mower will never be able to enter. Two pyramids, covered with scythes of all sizes, prove the importance of this manufacture and remind us, even in the midst of the noise of the gears and the shuddering of the looms, that this beautiful country, so ardent at work, is not entirely devoted to the labours of the factory.

Austria is next to Switzerland, and when you cross its border, you immediately encounter weapons. Field pieces, mountain pieces, cannons, carriages, war machines, rocket carriers, devices of all kinds for armies on the move, light carriers for transmitting signals by night; electric field telegraph and its carriage, torpedoes intended to be immersed in the sea and to blow up the imprudent ship which would approach too close to a fort or the ramparts of a coast battery, a fighting installation, full of originality, next to the elegant and light cars manufactured in Vienna, next to the heavy locomotives that cross the Simmering ramps and carry the products of this industrious country to the port of embarkation in Trieste, from where the Lloyd steamboats, whose models are in the same gallery, will load them for disembarkation in all the scales of the Levant, from Alexandria to Trebisonde.

©L'Exposition Universelle de 1867 Illustrée