GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

I must beg of you, kind reader, the privilege of addressing you no longer in the third but in the second person. By speaking to you, instead of about you, I shall avoid much circumlocution, and in words, at least, identify your interests with my own.

Since “generals” take the precedence of “particulars,” before entering upon any description of the details of rocket apparatus or manufacture, I must introduce you to certain friends without which you will find it difficult to get on in your work, and with which I trust you will shortly be on excellent terms, for you will require their aid in almost every branch of pyrotechny. The tools peculiarly employed in each separate process of the art will be spoken of in dealing with that process, and in their own place; but a short account of the things that are generally requisite will be more in place here than in any other part of this work.