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I call special attention to the fact that this book contains no merely traditional, untested recipes which have been simply transferred from one Housekeeper’s Manual to another for generations. Where I have not been guided by my own personal experience—which is, I venture to say, not very limited—I have either followed truly scientific works, such as the three hundred volumes of the Chemical-Technical Library of A. Hartleben; or, when citing from older authors, have invariably given recipes which agree with the principles advanced by modern analysts and inventors. And though not a professor of chemistry, yet, as I studied it and natural philosophy in my youth under Leopold Gmelin, L. Passelt, and Professor Joseph Henry, I trust that I have been sufficiently qualified to avoid errors in what I have written. In short, that I have not recklessly accumulated every recipe which I could find, and that what I give are really trustworthy, will appear plainly to the chemist or technologist, who will perceive that, proceeding from a given table of generally recognised and long-tested bases of cements, &c., I have then given deductions and combinations scientifically agreeing with their laws and with experiment. My book is not a pièce de manufacture, or of hack-work, but one which is the result of many years of practical experience in the minor arts and industries, on which subject alone I have published twenty-two works, without including pamphlets, lectures, and at least one hundred letters or articles in leading magazines and newspapers. There is, in short, very little mending or making described in this book which I have not at one time or other personally effected, having had all my life a passion for mending and restoring all kinds of objects, and that scientifically and thoroughly.