Out of the fleecy covering of sheep, he made clothes for himself of many kinds; from the flax plant he drew its fibres, and made linen and cambric; from the hemp plant he made ropes and fishing nets; from the cotton pod he fabricated fustians, dimities, and calicoes.
From the rags of these, or from weed and the shavings of wood, he made paper on which books and newspapers were printed.

Lead was formed by him into printer's type, for the communication of knowledge without end.
But the most extraordinary changes of all were made in a heavy stone containing metal, dug out of the ground.

With this, when smelted by wood or coal, and manipulated by experienced skill, iron was produced.
From this extraordinary metal, the soul of every manufacture, and the mainspring perhaps of civilised society--arms, hammers, and axes were made; then knives, scissors, and needles; then machinery to hold and control the prodigious force of steam; and eventually railroads and locomotives, ironclads propelled by the screw, and iron and steel bridges miles in length.
The silk manufacture, though originating in the secretion of a tiny caterpillar, is perhaps equally extraordinary.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds weight of this slender thread, no thicker than the filaments spun by a spider, give employment to millions of workers throughout the world.

Silk, and the many textures wrought from this beautiful material, had long been known in the East; but the period cannot be fixed when man first divested the chrysalis of its dwelling, and discovered that the little yellow ball which adhered to the leaf of the mulberry tree, could be evolved into a slender filament, from which tissues of endless variety and beauty could be made.