The opening of Preface
It is the business of operative industry to produce, transform, and distribute all such material objects as are suited to satisfy the wants of mankind. The primary production of these objects is assigned to the husbandman, the fisherman, and the miner; their transformation to the manufacturer and artisan; and their distribution to the engineer, shipwright, and sailor.[1] The unworked or raw materials are derived,--1. from the organic processes of vegetables and animals, conducted either without or with the fostering care of man; 2. from the boundless stores of mineral and metallic wealth, arranged upon or within the surface of the earth by the benignant Parent of our being, in the fittest condition to exercise our physical and intellectual powers in turning them to the uses of life.