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This e-book uses the text of the original printed work, including all inconsistencies in spelling, capitalisation, lay-out, hyphenation, etc. Examples are can not, cannot; Æstivation, Aestivation; ax, axe; Buenos Aires, Ayres; Hong Kong, Hongkong; saltpeter, saltpetre, etc. The spelling of non-English words (Abbe, Lumiere, Cinematograph) has not been corrected.

Some full-page illustrations have boxes around them, others do not. This has been copied from the original work.

Scale indications (“... times natural size”) are not necessarily valid for this e-text.

Background colouring has been removed from some illustrations to improve visibility of the illustration.

Where the limited size of the illustrations in this e-text makes it difficult or impossible to see all detail, a link to a larger scale image has been provided.

Remarks on the text:
Page 17: Bremenhaven possibly typo for Bremerhaven.
Page 172: Blaew is more commonly spelled Blaeu.
Page 317: The accompanying illustrations: there is only one illustration on white blackberries.
Page 321: as shown in the illustrations: there is only one illustration with pin sizes.
Page 394: reference to A in illustration: this is invisible in the original work.
Page 505-517: The table of contents calls this chapter Pictorial Story of the Airship; the page headings are Views of Airships or Views of Air Ships. The former has been used as chapter title for this e-book.
Page 509: The Mediterranean Sea is missing from the map.
Page 561: reference to illustration of roughly reconstructed Gallic reaper: this illustration is not present in the original work.

Changes made to the text:
Chapter headings have been inserted for the Pictorial Stories (Fishing Industry, Steel Industry, Fire Apparatus, Airship, Railroad Scenes from Shop and Road) to replace the page headers used in the original work.
Footnotes have been moved to the end of text.
Some obvious minor typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected silently.
The cover as presented in this e-book is based on that of the original work, but is not the same: the right-hand side of the cover was missing and showed a different picture.
Page 14: become changed to became
Page 40: simple changed to simply; there about changed to there are about
Page 45: to-day changed to today as elsewhere
Page 55: first illustration rotated 90° clockwise
Page 74: finger prints changed to finger-prints as elsewhere
Page 108: become hard changed to became hard
Page 149: snaking changed to shaking
Page 150: flintlock changed to flint-lock as elsewhere
Page 185: counter his changed to counter, his
Page 196: second illustration rotated 90° clockwise
Page 207: percolater changed to percolator as elsewhere
Page 224: Aboard changed to Abroad
Page 324: lormed changed to formed
Page 357: footnote anchor [27] added
Page 394: reference letter B in illustration enlarged
Page 411: eyeholes changed to eye-holes as elsewhere; reference letters in illustration moved and enlarged for better readability
Page 415: uneffected changed to unaffected
Page 421: counter-weights changed to counterweights as elsewhere
Page 490: captions moved from inside illustration
Page 504: cropped changed to dropped
Page 518: sky-scraper changed to skyscraper as elsewhere
Page 601: Oynx changed to Onyx (and moved to proper place)
Index: several entries moved to proper alphabetical order.