This book is intended as an elementary account of the several classes of processes employed in shaping materials of construction for various mechanical uses. A brief account of the properties of these materials and of the methods of producing them is also given.

Effort has been made to present the subject matter in brief and elementary form, with sufficient detail to outline methods and principles clearly. It is intended to show completely, though briefly, the steps of metal manufacture from the ore to the finished product, so that the student may be enabled to classify all branches of metal manufacture, and may pursue intelligently such study as will give fuller information than is possible to include herein.

Most of the subject matter is from notes taken by the writer when on engineering instruction, on shipyard inspection and other engineering duty and during recent visits to manufacturing plants where processes were observed through the courtesy of officials of those plants, and where valuable information was obtained which could not be obtained otherwise. These notes were in several instances checked and supplemented by information from various technical books and papers, particularly by reference to their reports of original investigations. A list of the books of great assistance in this work is as follows:

Iron (The Metallurgy of) - Turner.

Steel (The Metallurgy of) - Harbord and Hall.

The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel - Stoughton.

Chemistry of Materials of Engineering - Sexton.

Elementary Text Book of Metallurgy - Sexton.

Materials of Engineering - Thurston.

The Materials of Construction - Johnson.

Calcareous Cements - Redgrave and Spackman.

Hawkins Mechanical Dictionary.

Cyclopaedia of Mechanical Engineering.

Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers.

The shops of the following named industrial companies were recently visited:

Acme Steel & Malleable Iron Works, Buffalo, N. Y.

American Iron and Steel Mfg. Co., Beading, Pa.

American Sheet and Tin Plate Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.

American Steel and Wire Co., Springfield, Mass.

American Welding Co., Carbondale, Pa.

Babcock and Wilcox Boiler Co., Bayonne, N. J.

Benedict and Burnham Mfg. Co., Waterbury, Conn.

Best Mfg. Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.

Bethlehem Steel Co., South Bethlehem, Pa.

Billings and Spencer Co., Hartford, Conn.

E. W. Bliss Co., Brooklyn, N. Y.

Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co., Providence, E. I.

The Carborundum Co., Niagara Falls, N. Y.

The Coe Brass Mfg. Co., Ansonia, Conn.

Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Bldg. Co., Philadelphia.

The Crosby Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

Fore River Ship and Engine Bldg. Co., Quincy, Mass.

Glasgow Iron Works, Pottstown, Pa.

C. G. Hussey & Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.

Midvale Steel Co., Wayne Junction, Pa.

National Tube Co.'s Works at

Christy Park, Pa.

McKeesport, Pa.

Elwood City, Pa. New York Shipbuilding Co., Camden, N. J. Nicholson File Co., Providence, R. I.

Niles-Benent-Pond Co., Philadelphia, Pa. and branches

Pond Machine Tool Co., Plainfield, N. J.

Pratt & Whitney Co., Hartford, Conn. Reading Steel Castings Co., Reading, Pa. Schutte and Koerting Co., Philadelphia, Pa. Seneca Iron and Steel Co., Buffalo, N. Y. Worth Bros. Iron Works, Coatesville, Pa. U. S. Navy Yard, New York, N. Y. U. S. Navy Yard, Boston, Mass.

In addition, the following named companies have contributed useful information:

Harbison Walker Refractories Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.

Illinois Steel Co., South Chicago, Ill.

C. W. Leavitt & Co., New York, N. Y.

Manning, Maxwell and Moore, New York, N. Y.

Oliver Machinery Co., Grand Rapids, Mich.

Rockwell Furnace Co., New York, N. Y.

United Engineering and Foundry Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.

The manuscript was read by Captain F. W. Bartlett, U. S. Navy, Head of the Department of Marine Engineering and Naval Construction at the Naval Academy, and many valuable suggestions made by him are embodied in the text.

G. W. Danforth, U. S. Navy.

U. S. Naval Academy, September, 1911.