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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. of the uniforms of our volunteer troops, many thousands of whom were in procession on the Centennial Fourth of July, was specially noted by the foreign Judges. The production of blue police cloths has become an extensive branch of our manufacture, and the cloths are marked for their cheapness, durability of dye, and solidity of fabric. The period of 1836 was an epoch in the cloth industry of the world and of the century. It was the commencement of the change which has produced a character of the cloth fabrics, for general consumption throughout the world, which was one of the most conspicuous features of the Exhibition. In 1834, M. Bonjean, a prominent wool-manufacturer in Sedan, France, and an e/eve of the Polytechnic School, conceived the idea of modifying the plain cloths hitherto universally made, by uniting upon the same stuff different tints or patterns of tissue. This he was able to effect by the Jacquard loom. It was evident that the variety of stuffs which could be thus made was as unlimited as fancy. Hence he styled his woolens fancy cassimeres. These cloths, put on the market, and displayed at public exhibitions, instantly struck the pop ular taste, and were imitated, at first in France, and then in all other manufacturing nations. Their introduction into this country is an illustration of the benefits flowing from National Exhibitions. In 1840 an American gentleman, arriving directly from Paris, visited Mr. Samuel Lawrence, then agent of the Middlesex Mills at Lowell, Massachusetts. In the words of Mr. Lawrence, “ He had an over coat woven in diamond figures, of great beauty ; said he saw it at an Exhibition, at Paris; Bonjean & Son, of Sedan, were the manufac turers. He gave me a small bit from the inside of the collar.” With this bit as an example of what was to be done, Mr. Lawrence applied to Mr. George Crompton to adapt machinery for this tissue, already devised in cotton fabrics; and the result was the invention of the Crompton loom, upon which fancy cassimeres have since been woven, not only in this country, but in Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Bel gium. From this statement, it would seem that fancy cassimeres were first made in this country at Lowell. But it should be observed that the honor of the first introduction is also claimed by the New Eng land Mills of Rockville, Connecticut. The new cloths were adapted to the natural change which had begun to take place in the culture of wools. They required soundness, length, and strength, rather than the softness and fineness which had been the essential qualities of clothing-wools. The more abundant supply of the intermediary wools has continued to favor the production of the fancy woven