ALL material progress would be impossible but for the imaginative genius and practical skill of the engineer. Life might be more simple without his attainments, but it would certainly be less stimulating and less interesting. Furthermore, much that is genuinely romantic in the world to-day would not exist if the versatile minds of inventive men, supported by the courage of pioneers, had not grappled with problems that seemed insuperable. You have but to look around you to see their monuments-the great bridge, the railway, the aeroplane, the steelworks, the wireless station, tire wonderful dam, the powerful generating station; and a thousand other things which are milestones on the never-ending highway of human achievement.
The engineer who sees no romance in his work and the romanticist who regards with indifference the astonishing conquests of the engineer, both fail to grasp the significance of engineering. It is because this thought had long been established in established in my mind that I decided to place before the reader these volumes, volumes which reveal the significant story of world engineering to the informed and layman alike.
I believe such a work, comprehensive and accurate, is needed; and, with Mr. Thomas Walley, M.I.Mech.E., etc., as Consulting Editor, I have marshalled contributors who are familiar with their various subjects and have gathered the most remarkable collection of engineering pictures that has ever been brought together within such a compass.
My main considerations have been to make this work as comprehensive as possible and to give to it that quality of sincerity which I have always regarded as a very important feature of publications of this kind.
That you will find Wonders of World Engineering both comprehensive and not lacking in sincerity I have no doubt. Neither do I doubt that you will find the contents of these volumes more than a fascinating story of man's victory over what must always seem to be insurmountable odds.
