In preparing this work, it was not my intention to publish a mere collection of the rich and scattered materials, which literature has furnished on the subject treated (however acceptable it might have been in itself), but to give a clear and concise account of the art of soap and candle making as is now practiced.
And as my principal design has been to render this volume practical in its character, I have not confined my remarks simply to the manufacture of these articles, but added appropriate illustrations and critical explanations of the various manipulations and mechanical arrangements by which they are effected, thus compiling, instead of a dry compendium of facts, a condensed narrative, both instructive and interesting to the reader, in which are, moreover, introduced matter never previously published.
