Unless listed below, the text of the source document has been retained, including inconsistencies, dubious, unusual and archaic spellings, mixed languages (all including proper and geographical names), etc. (The absence of) accents and other diacriticals and other errors (in particular in non-English words and phrases) have not been corrected either. Factual errors (including dates and names), contradictions, duplications, repetitions, ambiguities and debatable calculations, formulas, definitions and descriptions have not been individually noted or corrected, but have been copied verbatim. Except in the Index of Illustrations, the occasional mistakes in the alphabetical order of the articles have not been corrected.

Hyperlinks have usually been inserted only where there was another article describing the topic or where there was an explicit references to another article (for example by the use of italics or Small Capitals when referring to a subject). Where appropriate, hyperlinks link directly to the subject of the article, not necessarily to the phrase or keyword mentioned. For example, the article Aluminium Bronze ends with See Ordnance, Metals for; the hyperlink goes directly to the section Aluminium Bronze in the article Ordnance, Metals for rather than to the main article. In some cases the hyperlink leads to the article describing (or mentioning) the subject rather than to the listed article where the latter does not exist, or where the listed article merely refers to a further article. In case of circular references (e.g., article Crown, Triumphal: see Triumphal Crown; article Triumphal Crown: see Crown, Triumphal), or where the target article does not mention the subject or does not exist at all, no hyperlinks have been inserted.

Plates and illustrations: the spelling and/or language of the captions may differ significantly from those in the body of the text and the Index to Illustrations. Some captions were largely illegible, and have been reconstructed based on the Index of Illustrations or on the main text where possible. Underneath each plate in the end of the book are the (usually enlarged) individual illustrations from the plate. Several of the illustrations were of rather poor quality, and it may not always be possible to read measurements or texts inside illustrations, nor has it always been possible to transcribe them. Where possible and necessary to see all details, hyperlinks to even larger illustrations have been provided (available in the on-line html format, but not necessarily in other formats). Several of the individual illustrations lack a caption; only when it is clear what the caption should be (i.e., a clear, unambiguous illustration that is listed in the Index of Illustrations) has a caption been inserted, as listed below. Some illustrations have been rotated or otherwise re-arranged for better readability or visibility

Changes made

Several obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected silently.

Ditto characters have in several cases been replaced by the dittoed text.

Footnotes have been moved to directly under the paragraph to which they belong.

Some tables and mathematical formulas have been re-arranged or re-aligned for better readability.

page 374: (.3-inch changed to (3 inch)

page 375: 935,649,235 pounds changed to 935, 649, and 235 pounds; caliber 10,236 inches changed to caliber 10.236 inches