History Books

Mr. TOMPKINS said: Mr. Chairman: The charge is frequently made, that nothing but slavery occupies the attention of the National Legislature. That this charge is true to a great extent, that this subject is constantly kept before the country, and that there is constant excitement about it, is not the fault of the Republican party. In the first hour of the present session of Congress, it was thrust upon... more...

CHAPTER I. The remotest fact in the history of England is written in her rocks.Geology tells us of a time when no sea flowed between Dover and Calais,while an unbroken continent extended from the Mediterranean to theOrkneys. Huge mounds of rough stones called Cromlechs, have yielded up still another secret. Before the coming of the Keltic-Aryans, there dwelt there two successive races, whose story is... more...

INTRODUCTION Lighter-than-air craft consist of three distinct types: Airships, which are by far the most important, Free Balloons, and Kite Balloons, which are attached to the ground or to a ship by a cable. They derive their appellation from the fact that when charged with hydrogen, or some other form of gas, they are lighter than the air which they displace. Of these three types the free balloon is... more...

'They were men whose fathers were men'TO make it clear how Major Wilson and his companions came to die on the banks of the Shangani on December 4, 1893, it will be necessary, very briefly, to sketch the events which led to the war between the English settlers in Mashonaland in South Africa and the Matabele tribe, an offshoot of the Zulu race.In October 1889, at the instance of Mr. Cecil... more...

CHAPTER I.—HER BIOGRAPHY. Ida Pfeiffer, the celebrated traveller, was born in Vienna on the 14th of October 1797.  She was the third child of a well-to-do merchant, named Reyer; and at an early age gave indications of an original and self-possessed character.  The only girl in a family of six children, her predilections were favoured by the circumstances which surrounded her.  She was bold,... more...

CHAPTER I THE LAND Patriarchal Palestine! There are some who would tell us that the very name is a misnomer. Have we not been assured by the German critics and their English disciples that there were no patriarchs and no Patriarchal Age? And yet, the critics notwithstanding, the Patriarchal Age has actually existed. While criticism, so-called, has been busy in demolishing the records of the Pentateuch,... more...

THE WAY TO THE WAR When I told my friends that I was going to the Italian front they smiled disdainfully. "You will only be wasting your time," one of them warned me. "There isn't anything doing there," said another. And when I came back they greeted me with "You didn't see much, did you?" and "What are the Italians doing, anyway?" If I had time I told them... more...

LAWLESSNESS IN GEORGIA.   Washington, D. C., March 15, 1870. My Dear Sir: It would not become me to express an opinion upon any of the legal questions involved in the Georgia bill now before the Senate, but I respectfully call your attention to the following "statements" of facts. I certainly am not surprised that Honorable gentlemen whom I greatly esteem, should express their belief that the... more...

INTRODUCTORY. The Thirteen Paintings, to a history and description of which (and incidentally to a brief memoir of their creator, Edward Moran) these pages are devoted, are monumental in their character and importance. Mr. Moran designated them as representing the "Marine History of the United States." I have somewhat changed this title; for even the untraversed "Ocean" and the landing... more...

If there be one circumstance more than another that has conferred celebrity on the Forest of Dean, it is the remote origin, perpetuation, and invariably high repute of its iron works.  Uniting these characteristics in one, it probably surpasses every other spot in Great Britain. In the author’s former “historical account” of this neighbourhood, he gave all the information he had then collected... more...