As it would be impossible to treat, in the compass of a few hundred pages, all the great engineering feats of modern times without reducing individual accounts to uninteresting brevity, the author has preferred, where selection is possible, to take typical instances of engineering practice, and, by the aid of comparatively detailed descriptions, to place the reader in a position to appreciate them and similar undertakings. - Summary by Adapted from the Preface

As it would be impossible to treat, in the compass of a few hundred pages, all the great engineering feats of modern times without reducing individual accounts to uninteresting brevity, the author has preferred, where selection is possible, to take typical instances of engineering practice, and, by the aid of comparatively detailed descriptions, to place the reader in a position to appreciate them and similar undertakings. - Summary by Adapted from the Preface