The opening of Preface
The design of the present work is briefly, but not completely expressed in its title-page. Independently of a reliable and comprehensive collection of formulæ and processes in nearly all the industrial and useful arts, it contains a description of the leading properties and applications of the substances referred to, together with ample directions, hints, data, and allied information, calculated to facilitate the development of the practical value of the book in the shop, the laboratory, the factory, and the household. Notices of the substances embraced in the Materia Medica of our national pharmacopœias, in addition to the whole of their preparations, and numerous other animal and vegetable substances employed in medicine, as well as most of those used for food, clothing, and fuel, with their economic applications, have been included in the work. The synonymes and references are other additions which will prove invaluable to the reader. Lastly, there have been appended to all the principal articles referred to brief, but clear, directions for determining their purity and commercial value, and for detecting their presence and proportions in compounds.