THE OPERATIVE MECHANIC'S WORKSHOP COMPANION, AND THE SCIENTIFIC GENTLEMAN'S Practical Assistant: COMPRISING A GREAT VARIETY OF THE MOST USEFUL RULES IN DIVESTED OF MATHEMATICAL COMPLEXITY; WITH NUMEROUS TABLES OF PRACTICAL DATA For Facilitating Mechanical and Commercial Transactions. BY W. TEMPLETON, AUTHOR OF THE ENGINEER'S POCKET-BOOK (PUBLISHED ANNUALLY), London: JOHN WEALE, HIGH HOLBORN. TO THE PUBLIC. THE subjects of the following pages are chiefly compiled at the instigation of pressing solicitations by numerous individuals, no few of whom complain of the want of a convenient Text Book of Reference in which Mechanical and Commercial demands are judiciously combined. Others, with apparently equal reasons, for the sake of instruction, complain of the want of a compendium in which tuition and practical reference are discriminately arranged; and generally, that for purposes of estimation, no properly portable work is yet in existence: hence it is with a wish to diminish those wants in some degree that the present attempt has been made to supply the necessary information. In regard to the selection, great care has been taken that the subjects be not only intimately interwoven, but also of such a nature as business transactions call most frequently into requisition. The elementary or educational portion will be found exceedingly plain, simple, and aptly adapted; also the practical rules much abbreviated through the application of decimal approximates, by which results are obtained sufficiently exact, and the means of calculation considerably facilitated. That the production might be rendered still more worthy of public patronage, numerous diagrams, and several engravings, are annexed, which add much to its value in regard to practical utility; and it only remains for me to add a hope, that the Operative, the Man of Science, and an interested Public, may give due appreciation to the work, in proportion to its merits. W. T. London, 1st January, 1845. |