Classics Books

PREFACE When in 1850 appeared the Report of the Secretary of War for the United States, containing Mr. J. H. Simpson's account of the Cliff Dwellings in Colorado, great surprise was awakened in America, and since then these remains have been investigated by many explorers, of whom I need only name Holmes' "Report of the Ancient Ruins in South-West Colorado during the Summers of 1875 and... more...

Section I. INTRODUCTORY. 1. Botany is the name of the science of the vegetable kingdom in general; that is, of plants. 2. Plants may be studied as to their kinds and relationships. This study is Systematic Botany. An enumeration of the kinds of vegetables, as far as known, classified according to their various degrees of resemblance or difference, constitutes a general System of plants. A similar... more...

CHAPTER I IN a large and cool drawing-room of London a few people were scattered about, listening to a soprano voice that was singing to the accompaniment of a piano. The sound of the voice came from an inner room, towards which most of these people were looking earnestly. Only one or two seemed indifferent to the fascination of the singer. A little woman, with oily black hair and enormous dark eyes,... more...

When Reggie Van Fiddler sauntered into the cool somber depths of the Midland Club's lobby, he was feeling in an exceptionally amiable mood. There was a song in his heart and a bland, dreamily vague smile on his long, narrow face. This state of blissful tranquility could be attributed to the fact that Reggie's tan and white shoes were taking him directly toward the Club Bar, where he planned... more...

Chapter I EN ROUTE Likely enough, I would not have remained in Gafsa more than a couple of days. For it was my intention to go from England straight down to the oases of the Djerid, Tozeur and Nefta, a corner of Tunisia left unexplored during my last visit to that country—there, where the inland regions shelve down towards those mysterious depressions, the Chotts, dried-up oceans, they say, where in... more...

CHAPTER1 MIDNIGHT AT THE GATE After a long, tiring climb, the two friends, Penny Parker and Jerry Livingston, had reached the summit of Knob Hill, far above the city of Riverview. Now as they paused in the moonlight to catch their breath, the slim, golden-haired girl bent to adjust the irons of her skis before making a swift descent to the clearing below. “We’ll not have many more glorious skiing... more...

"Here's a letter for you, Harry," said George Howard. "I was passing the hotel on my way home from school when Abner Potts called out to me from the piazza, and asked me to bring it." The speaker was a bright, round-faced boy of ten. The boy whom he addressed was five or six years older. Only a week previous he had lost his father, and as the family consisted only of these two, he... more...

CHAPTER I "THURSTON'S FOLLY" It was a pity that Geoffrey Thurston was following in his grandfather's footsteps, the sturdy dalefolk said, and several of them shook their heads solemnly as they repeated the observation when one morning the young man came striding down the steep street of a village in the North Country. The cluster of gray stone houses nestled beneath the scarred face... more...

CHAPTER I. When I was a little boy of about six years old, I was standing with a maid-servant in the balcony of one of the upper rooms of my father's house in London—it was the evening of the first day that I had ever been in London, and my senses had been excited, and almost exhausted, by the vast variety of objects that were new to me. It was dusk, and I was growing sleepy, but my attention... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BLANKET-WASHING. Ralph Peden lay well content under a thorn bush above the Grannoch water. It was the second day of his sojourning in Galloway—the first of his breathing the heather scent on which the bees grew tipsy, and of listening to the grasshoppers CHIRRING in the long bent by the loch side. Yesterday his father's friend, Allan Welsh, minister of the Marrow kirk in the... more...