This book describes the part played in human life, industry and civilization by metals as common as iron and as rare as praseodymium. The opening chapters discuss the distribution of the earth's crust and descriptions of the mining and smelting of metallic ores and of the blending to form alloys. Later chapters look at the properties and uses of all the major and minor metals in nuclear energy, the shaping of metals for tasks as disparate as the making of a needle and a high-pressure gas cylinder, the casting of a bronze statue and ship's propeller, the latest methods of steel making and the use of titanium to support the beams of Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose. Metallurgical research and industrial techniques are constantly advancing and this latest edition has been updated to cover a range of developments, from new methods of examining metals and alloys under electron microscope to the welding of oil rigs under the sea.