CHAPTER VII.
RISE, PROGRESS, AND CHARACTERISTICS OF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN BIRMINGHAM—BRIEF NOTICE OF LEADING BRANCHES AND ESTABLISHMENTS.
SOME characteristics of the manufactures for which Birmingham is distinguished have been already generalized in a passing notice. Still they enter into the life and being of the town so vitally, that it would be irrelevant to the object of this volume not to devote to them an entire chapter. If in this space enough should be stated to create a new interest in the reader in them, he may satisfy it to the fullest extent by reading "Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District," by Samuel Timmins, Esq.—an exhaustive volume, full of the most extensive and instructive information on the subject. Hutton, the witty, apothegmatic historian of the town, writing more than half a century ago, observes that "Birmingham began with the productions of the anvil and probably will end with them." The first half of this statement is true of civilization itself.
