Volume 1 of Andrew Ure's 1836 survey of the cotton industry. It opens with an introduction comparing cotton manufacture in foreign countries, drawn from his own visits to mills in France, Germany and elsewhere. Book I covers the handicraft origins of cotton manufacture, including India. Book II covers the botany, cultivation and trade of cotton, with the saw-gin and import and price tables. Book III covers the early factory system and the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Paul and others, followed by a view of a modern cotton factory. An appendix has trade statistics and factory employment tables, and Dr. Kay's 1835 report to the Poor Law Commissioners. The book has engraved illustrations of cotton plants, fibres, gins, spinning wheels, and spinning machines.

Volume 2 of Andrew Ure's account of the British cotton industry, published in 1836. It describes the machinery and processes of the cotton mill in detail: cleaning, scutching and lapping, carding, drawing, roving frames, throstle and mule spinning (including the self-acting mule), reeling, gassing, doubling and twisting. It then covers warping, dressing and sizing, hand and power-loom weaving (including Sharp and Roberts' loom), and fustian cutting. It also treats the bobbin-net lace machine and its history in connection with the stocking frame. The last part (Book IV) gives statistics on the industry, the bobbin-net trade, cotton and yarn prices, and wages. The text is illustrated with many engravings and line drawings of machines, and has tables of calculations and statistics.