KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: A VIEW OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF MODERN SOCIETY AND THE RESULTS OF LABOR, CAPITAL AND SKILL. BY CHARLES KNIGHT. Revised and Edited, with Additions, BY 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 Arte, Useful.! Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 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, |