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Prati A 135: 
INTRODUCTION. 
Tue first effort of man is to procure his food and the most indispensable 
necessaries of life; when these are supplied he endeavors to make his 
existence more comfortable, and to obtain various physical and mental 
enjoyments. For the attainment of these objects a great variety of different 
kinds of labor is required, which are sometimes quite simple, but more 
frequently complicated, requiring much knowledge and skill. The totality 
of knowledge by which we learn to transform and prepare the products of 
nature, the raw material, so as to serve for the use and pleasure of man, we 
eall Industrial Science or Technology. In other words, technology com- 
prises the knowledge of the various arts and manufactures by means of 
which the different materials are adapted to our uses, and the knowledge 
of all the substances and auxiliaries which serve for that purpose. It is 
evident that the field of Technology is one of vast extent, there being no 
branch of human industry into which it does not enter. 
However crude technology must have been in its beginnings, being at 
first limited to the preparation of food, the construction of secure dwellings, 
and the manufacture of arms and clothing, it has yet risen to a high degree 
of development in the course of centuries. While the first inhabitants of 
the earth were content with a rude preparation of the products of nature, 
using only the power of their hands, we call to our aid the elementary 
forces of nature, and have subjected them to our rule; the most sagacious 
discoveries in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, the experience of cen-_ 
turies and the most distinguished results of human ingenuity are united for 
the purpose of saving power, time, and human labor, while at the same 
time the results are more perfect than it is possible for them to become by 
mere manual labor. The knowledge of those implements and machines 
which have been invented for working raw materials constitutes therefore 
one of the principal branches of industrial science. In order to treat of 
the latter in its full extent it would be necessary to compile a voluminous 
work with countless plates. This, however, could not be the design of the 
present treatise, which only forms a subdivision of a more comprehensive 
work ; and we have therefore selected the most important and interesting 
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