design to a greater extent, and the public mind was not as yet awake to the inconveniences of the general ignorance or inattention with respect to these topics. The work had been many years out of print, when some remarks, from a high authority, on the importance of an acquaintance with "common things," recalled to the mind of the editor the modest little volume of her father. To give it the corrections and additions required by the immense advances in the application of mechanical and chemical science to manufacture made within the present century, chiefly through the sevenleague strides of the gigantic power of steam, has been to her a "labour of love." The chief materials for this purpose she found in the "Illustrations" addressed by her late brother, Mr. Arthur Aikin, to the Society of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, and published in its Transactions. She has also been indebted for valuable facts and suggestions to the very learned work of Mr. James Yates, entitled "Textrinum Antiquorum." Several narratives of travels have likewise supplied her with fresh information. |