The book describes, with the help of photographs and diagrams, the part played by metals in human life, industry and civilization, covering those as common as iron and as rare as praseodymium. The opening chapters discuss the distribution of metals, with an analysis of the Earth's crust and describe the mining and smelting of metallic ores and the blending of metals to form alloys. Later chapters look at the properties and uses of all the major and minor metals, the use of metals in nuclear energy and the shaping of metals for tasks as disparate as the making of a needle and a high-pressure gas cylinder.