In putting this work before the public, the Author has endeavoured
to supply a clear and brief description of the materials, processes,
and apparatus made use of in the various examples of industry and
skill constantly before our eyes, so that the reader may acquire a
knowledge of such things, and an interest in those, who, by their
hard work and patient ingenuity, supply them; for every article and
process can be made to have a value and an interest, in proportion to
the amount of knowledge we possess respecting them.
* * * * *
There is no attempt in this work to describe every article and
process, but such only as are most interesting and instructive. All
the mere trades and handicrafts--the results of which are so various,
and depend so completely upon the skill of the artisan, that any
description of their particulars would scarcely be profitable or
interesting to the reader--have been avoided. The illustrations of
this work have been prepared with the greatest care, and drawn from
reality. By the kind permission of Lord Panmure, the artists were
allowed to make whatever drawings were necessary in the Arsenal at
Woolwich; and thanks are due to many of our eminent manufacturers for
similar favours with respect to their several factories and machinery.
* * * * *
In the first division of this work have been placed all those
materials which exist in nature, either isolated or combined, and
which have merely to be extracted or separated, as the earths,
metals, &c. Under the second division, “Manufactured Products,”
such results of manufacture as are known by the common designation
“stuff,” and are of an uniform and particular quality, as soap,
soda, &c., not existing in Nature as such. In the third division,
individual articles, the result of skilled labour, each compounded
and made up of several substances, or of particular forms. In the
fourth section are the processes made use of in the production of
the various necessaries or elegancies of life. Some of these might
have been placed under the second and third divisions, but the Author
thought proper to place them here, on account of the processes being
more readily described than their results. The fifth division is
devoted to the most usual forms of Apparatus and Machinery of general
application, avoiding all mere tools and machines for specific
purposes. The last division is a mere outline of those important
engineering works which of late have acquired an increased interest
from the addition of railways and electric telegraphs to their number.