Please see Transcriber’s Notes at the end of this text.
Note that all Plates the text refers to may be found at the end of the book (starting here), as in the originalwork. For ease of reading, (parts of) the plates have been copied to that part of the text where they are described. The Plates at theend of the book provide links to larger scale plates (not available in all formats); many reference letters will only be visible in theselarger scale plates.
By JAMES WHITE, Civil Engineer.
Connoissons le principe—
Nourrissons nous des Elemens.
Girard Syn. fr.
Manchester:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, BY LEECH AND CHEETHAM, WRIGHT’S-COURT,MARKET-STREET.
AND SOLD BY
W. AND W. CLARKE, MARKET-PLACE; E. THOMSON, MARKET-STREET;T. SOWLER, ST. ANN’S-SQUARE, MANCHESTER.
G. WILSON, 49, ESSEX-STREET, STRAND; LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME,AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW, LONDON.
AND BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
1822.
Entered at Stationers’ Hall.
It has been my lot, during a long and eventfulpassage through life, to have my attention forciblydrawn to a multitude of Mechanical Subjects; thepresent review of which permits me to hope, thatin making them publicly known, I should renderan important service to the Arts and to Society.But the manner of doing this has been so long aquestion with me, that I have sometimes feared myability would be extinct before I could do it at all.The reasons, however, that urge me to make theattempt acquire strength with the lapse of time:and whenever my declining health bespeaks the approachof that “night in which no man can work,”I feel deep regret, that this tribute should not havebeen thrown into the treasury of human knowledgewhile yet, by the favour of a good Providence, themeans of doing it were more fully at my disposal.
I have determined therefore to publish theseInventions. Not because they have been maturedinto a regular System of Mechanical truth;[iv]but because they consist of many distinct objectsof immediate application:—coupled with someideas of a more comprehensive nature, that mayprobably extend the usefulness of this admirablestudy, in the hands of Artists yet unborn.
The form, or rather the title of this work, hasbut one example, that of the illustrious Marquisof Worcester; whose name may, perhaps, prolongthe remembrance of mine: an event therightful anticipation of which, I confess, wouldgive me pleasure. Not that I either covet or regardwhat is commonly called popular applause:but the approbation of the wise and good I doregard, and aspire to obtain; since that aloneseems to fulfil the adage—“Vox populi vox dei.”
On the subject of our respective Inventions, m