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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. 49 mous extension of our paper-manufacture has of late years stimulated a supply from domestic sources of this indispensable material for paper- making, not long since obtained from abroad. Exhibits of paper felts were made by several mills. A letter from Messrs. Rice, Kendall, & Co., paper-manufacturers and dealers in paper-makers’ supplies,—the head of the firm being the present Governor of Massachusetts,—ex presses the general character of the American felts, although having in view the product of a special mill. “ We have introduced them,” they say, “ into paper-mills making all the finer qualities of bond- or writing-paper; also best and ordinary book-, news-, Manila-, tissue-, straw-, and sheathing-paper; also printers’ and woolen manufacturers press-boards, leathers, and binders’ boards, and wood-pulp; and have had many high recommendations from the manufacturers regarding their wear and suitable quality. . . . We feel confident that they (the American felt-makers named) are able to manufacture anything in the line of feltings used by the various manufacturers of paper; and, judging from our former experience as importers of felts, they have made many improvements in them.” It is curious that the art of joining the two extremities to make an endless felt is kept a secret by the fortunate possessors, for the use of which manufacturers pay a royalty. Although no hat bodies—another form of felted goods—were ex hibited, several special machines for forming hat bodies were shown, illustrating how completely the handicraft had been substituted by machinery. There is hardly a process in the manufacture which is not now done automatically, a single establishment turning off eight hundred dozen of hats daily. The hatter, as a separate artisan, has disappeared. Fifty years ago there was one in every village. A hatter’s bow having been recently required in a patent trial, a diligent search could not find one in the country. CLASS 236.—Plain Flannels, Dometts, Opera and Fancy. The flannel-manufacture, almost exclusively represented at the Exhibition by American exhibits, has attained an enormous develop ment in the United States, as illustrated by the fact that an auction sale, in July last, by a single house representing 157 sets in different mills, netted $2,500,000. Flannel being the first stage in the manu facture of plain cloth, it constitutes one of the principal products of the smaller mills in the new States; while, in the older manufac turing States, mills employing from ten to fifty sets are exclusively engaged in its manufacture. The great domestic demand for these goods may be attributed to the rigor of our climate, or to the fact 4