The processes that may be employed, to give to portions of inert matte — Andrew Ure

"The difficulties which Arkwright encountered in organizing his factory system, were much greater than is commonly imagined. In the first place, he had to train his work-people to a precision in assiduity altogether unknown before, against which their listless and restive habits rose in continual rebellion; in the second place, he had to form a body of accurate mechanics, very different from the rude hands which then satisfied the manufacturer; in the third, he had to seek a market for his yarns; and in the fourth, he had to resist competition in its most odious forms. From the concurrence of these circumstances, we find that so late as the year 1779, ten years after the date of his first patent, his enterprise was regarded by many as a doubtful novelty."

"Of the early management pioneers, history has provided us with the best records for four men: Robert Owen, Charles Babbage, Andrew Ure, and Charles Dupin... Ure knew the French engineer and management writer Charles Dupin, and when Dupin visited Great Britain in 1816–1818, Ure escorted him around the Glasgow factories. Dupin commented that many of the managers of these factories were Ure’s own students."

"Being advised by his medical friends to try the effects of travelling, with light intellectual exercise, he left London in the latter end of last summer, and spent several months in wandering through the factory districts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, &c., with the happiest results to his health; having everywhere experienced the utmost kindness and liberality from the mill-proprietors."

"The final tin-dip is useful to remove the marks of the brush, and to make the surface uniformly bright."

"It is in a cotton mill, however, that the perfection of automatic industry is to be seen; it is there that the elemental powers have been made to animate millions of complex organs, infusing into forms of wood, iron, and brass an intelligent agency."

"The present volume, introductory to a series of works in more ample detail, is submitted to the public as a specimen of the manner in which the author conceives technological subjects should be discussed."