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 handicraftsthe 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 readerhave 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.