THE duty that primarily devolves upon the author, in offering to the public the reprint of his first volume of the work on Turning and Mechanical Manipulation, is to express his warmest thanks for the very flattering reception the volume has met with, and which has greatly exceeded his anticipation; as the first edition was exhausted within two years of its appearane.

The author is disposed to hope that his efforts to obtain accuracy have been found successful, from the circumstance that no corrections have been suggested; and also that his descriptions have been found practical, as various amateurs previously unacquainted with some of the subjects treated of in the work, have upon following its pages as a text-book, succeeded in their attempts at various of the processes described; and amongst these in some of the more difficult, as flattening thin plates of metal, founding, soldering and others: these successes the author views as his highest encomiums.

8 It is the author's earnest endeavour to make his entire work keep pace with the existing state of the mechanical arts, which in this country are at most times in a state of rapid progression. This will be attempted by the introduction in the successive appendixes, of such additions and novelties as the author may consider to appertain to the portions of the work already printed.

This scheme whilst it renders the first edition equally complete with the second, leaves the sequence of the pages unaltered, so that the index may, as intended, serve in common for the preliminary volumes; and which instead of being limited to two, it is proposed to extend to three, as explained at length in the preface to the Second Volume, which further portion of the work is this day also laid before the public.

Charing Cross,

November 10,1846.