position, etc., which are required to enable them
to satisfy human wants. The manufacturing stages where machinery finds
fullest application are in nearly all cases intermediate stages of
production. Even where machine-production seems directly to satisfy
some human want, there are commonly some final processes required
which involve individual skill. Almost all products which satisfy the
desires of man pass through a large number of productive processes
which may be classed as extractive, transport, manufacturing, and
distributive. These are, of course, not in all cases clearly
distinguishable. Mixed with the extractive processes of mining and
wheat-raising are several processes of transport and manufacture: the
various stages of manufacture may be broken by stages of transport: a
final process of manipulation or manufacture may precede the final act
of distribution, as in the sale of drugs to the consumer. But,
generally speaking, these four kinds of productive processes mark four
historic stages in the passage from raw material to finished
commodity.

The two middle stages of transport and manufacture have fallen far
more fully under the control of steam-driven machinery than the
others, and it is in the elaboration of older manufacturing and
transport processes and the addition of new processes that we trace
the largest effects of the evolution of modern industrial methods.

The following list of the divisions under which workers engaged in the
production of material wealth are classified for purposes of the
census may serve to bring out more clearly this proportionate
development of machinery. The figures appended give the numbers
engaged in the several occupations in 1891, and serve to approximately
indicate the relative importance of the several principal branches of
industry:--

Agriculture 1,311,720
Fishing 25,225
Mining 561,637
Stone, clay, road-making 209,972
Transport--
(_a_) Railways 186,774
(_b_) Roads 366,605
(_c_) Canals, rivers, seas 208,443
(_d_) Messages and porterage 194,044
Houses, furniture, and decorations 820,582
Food and lodgings 797,989
Iron and steel 380,193
Other metals