The Repository of Useful Arts & Sciences, or Ingenious Man's Companion; containing Many Hundred Rare and Valuable Receipts, Curious Experiments, &c. in Arts, Manufactures & Chemistry, Which produce astonishing effects from simple causes.

London: W. Gibson, 1824. Technical manual or formulary, containing sometimes vague recipes & formulas for drawing & painting, extracting lake, varnishes, gilding metals, dyeing & staining, dyeing silks, stuffs, cloths, threads of various colours, [leather], processes relative to iron, stationery [quills & ink], [spot removal], perfuming, "wash balls", angling, bird catching, books [cleaning, book-binder's paste], building [damp cure, wood preservatives], cements [& glues], boot & shoe blacking, pleasing experiments [including gas light, phosphoric pencil, fire bottle, lithography, painting on glass, transparent screens for phantasmagoria, fulminating balls & tape, thunder powder], writing [secret], fireworks, fancy devices for the water [mermaids, whales], [roman candle, artificial earthquake], amusements with fulminating silver [trick explosions in clothing, furniture, 'segars'], brewing malt liquors [beer], distilling, wine, destroying vermin [rats, mice, badgers, cats, weasels, hedge hogs, otters, flies, moths, reptiles, bugs], [food preservation][coffee & tea], [cleaning]. Not OSHA approved, and many ingredients will be mysterious to the modern reader; nevertheless, a fascinating compendium of chemical & material process. Stated fourteenth edition; first published as The Cabinet of Useful Arts & Sciences, or Ingenious Man's Companion... in Dublin in 1813 and frequently reprinted, with the last edition we note under this title being the 12th in 1820. Difficult to parse the several variations, but scarce in any edition: Worldcat appears to note 3 Dublin editions of the earlier Cabinet - 3rd (1813), 10th (1814), 12th (1820) held by as many institutions; the Smithsonian has a fourth edition, 1825, of the Repository, by a different publisher. Small hardcover, as pictured. Fair, heavily worn, much of the spine missing, corners & edges bumped, free endsheets (& frontispiece?) gone, pencil math notes inside both covers, a few minor spots of foxing & minor stains; xx, 232 pages.. Later Printing. Hard Cover. Fair. 3½" by 6".