INTRODUCTION. The inquiring mind uses all its senses to obtain some new idea, and to apply it to some useful purpose; it is this spirit of research that has led to all the great results in Art and in the mechanical and chemical sciences, which we now enjoy and admire; but it is only by very slow degrees, and by great perseverance, that such results are obtained, although the accumulation of a few years makes an enormous aggregate. Look back a generation or two--where was then the steam engine, where the tall stalks which indicate the sites of complicated and ingenious manufactures? the blacksmith then worked at his anvil, and wrought out with his hands what he required in iron; but what is now done with this treasure of the mine? behold the Leviathan and the Britannia Bridge,--count their thousands of tons of plate iron rolled out by machinery, and think of the work of their removal, the millions of rivets to fix them together, the elevation of the one, and the launching of the other. Could this be done without that machinery which has become gradually perfected by thought and perseverance? Visit the iron works and see the powerful “steam hammer” moulding into form a mass of red-hot iron, many tons in weight; see the powerful and beautiful contrivances for rolling into plates, drawing into bars and wire, or cutting up this stubborn metal, and call it stubborn no more! See the powerful “locomotive” carrying along the trams hundreds of tons of goods at a rate that can hardly be equalled by the bird that flies through the air on its light pinions; and the huge steam ships which cut their rapid way across the seas, holding in contempt those very winds upon which alone the mariner used to depend! See with what rapidity and accuracy almost every kind of “textile” material is produced by the steam-worked loom, and remember that these have all arisen, with hundreds more, from small beginnings, and step by step.