DAVID A. WELLS, A. M., EDITOR "ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY," "YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE,” “FAMILIAR ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. "The empire of man over material things has for its only foundation the sciences and the BOSTON: GOULD AND LINCOLN, 59 WASHINGTON STREET. NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO., 1856. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by GOULD AND LINCOLN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 82 & 84 Beekman St., N. Y. EDITOR'S PREFACE. THIS work, entitled "Knowledge is Power," was first published in England early in the year 1855. The author, Mr. Charles Knight, is well known to the reading public of Great Britain and the United States, as an eminent London publisher, and as the editor and author of the "Penny Magazine," "Penny Cyclopedia," "The Results of Machinery," and other popular works. The design of "Knowledge is Power" is to set forth in a concise and familiar manner the nature and variety of the various productive forces of modern society, together with the results which have been attained to by the union of labor, capital and skill; the whole illustrated by numerous examples and statistics, derived in great part from the history of the civilization and progress of the Anglo-Saxon races, and from their present condition. The author, in the preparation of the work, having had solely in view the instruction and requirements of the English public, introduced many illustrative examples, statistics and engravings, which were both inapplicable and foreign to the actual condition and past history of industrial progress in the United States. To render, therefore, the book more useful, and in all respects intelligible to the American reader, a careful revision and re-editing were considered necessary. In the execution of this requirement the Editor has strictly followed the original plan of the author, as the principles laid down, and the subjects treated of, are general in their nature, and confined to no section of any country, or to any particular nation. Some entirely new chapters have been added, others re-written in great part, and much industrial, historical, and statistical matter, which was exclusively English and local, has been omitted, and replaced with information of a like character drawn from American sources. The majority of the original engravings with which the book was illustrated, have, for a similar reason, been replaced by others. If it be objected to by any, that the work, notwithstanding its revision, is too English in character, it may be urged in reply, that as respects the past, British history, previous to the eighteenth century, is the common heritage of both the Englishman and the American, and that their ancestors were also our ancestors; for the present, we need not remind the reader that the industrial pursuits of both countries are so closely associated and united, that whatever pertains to the interests of one, also affects in a greater or less degree the interests of the other. "Without attempting," says Mr. Knight, "to give to the volume the formal shape of a treatise on political economy, it is the wish of the author to convey the broad parts of his subject in a somewhat desultory manner, but one which is not altogether devoid of logical arrangement. He desires especially to be understood by the young; for upon their right appreciation of the principles which govern society will depend much of the security and happiness of our own and the coming time. The danger of our present period of transition is, that theory should expect too much, and that practice should do too little in the amelioration of the condition of the people.” NEW YORK, April, 1856. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE ROUSSEAU'S OPINION ON OBSERVING-FAMILIARITY WITH THE DE- CHAPTER II. FEEBLE RESOURCES OF CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT.-ROSS COX, 26 CHAPTER III. SOCIETY A SYSTEM OF EXCHANGES.-SECURITY OF INDIVIDUAL PROP- CHAPTER IV. ADVENTURES OF JOHN TANNER.-HABITS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.- 36 |