For these reasons the choice of a trade is a most important event in every boy’s life, and it is no less difficult than important, because when a boy has just left school he seldom knows much about the operations of any trade, and cannot be expected to express any preference for one more than another. Whether this book will be of any use in this respect, by directing attention to some of the principal industries of the country in which we live, must after all depend upon the tastes of each particular reader; but it may at all events claim to be useful in making known what are the operations necessary to some of our great manufactures, and in explaining the method of using the tools employed by those engaged in them. A volume like the present can scarcely be said to have an Author, since much of its contents must necessarily be the work of the compiler, who condenses the valuable material supplied by other writers, and adapts it to his purpose. It is impossible that any great part of the _matter_ can be original; and in some parts of the following pages the writer has found it altogether inexpedient to change even the _manner_ of those who are regarded as the principal authorities on scientific subjects. He believes, however, that even where he has borrowed, he has borrowed with some discretion. Whether he has succeeded in explaining and simplifying the reader will be able to judge. THE BRICKMAKER. [Illustration: BRICKFIELD, SHED, KILN, &C.] It would be very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to discover at what time in the history of the world the art of brickmaking was first practised. In the earliest records of the human race the making of bricks is mentioned; this was part of the labour imposed upon the children of Israel, when they were in captivity in Egypt, and bricks of excellent quality are found in some of the most ancient buildings, the remains of which have been discovered. Though uncivilized nations, and even some which had made great progress in civilization, but lived in very warm or exceedingly cold climates, frequently built dwellings of wood, of wattles or strips of trees and branches covered with clay and lime, and of rough stone and earth; and though whole tribes lived and still live under tents, or in mere log huts and wigwams, or lodges made of the skins of animals, the manufacture of bricks formed of clay, and either burnt with fire or dried in the sun, is amongst the oldest of all known trades. In our own day it has arrived at such perfection and the varieties of bricks and tiles are so great in order to provide for the great diversity in buildings, that it is one of the most important branches of English industry.