General Books

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. Ancient Furniture. Biblical References: Solomon's House and Temple—Palace of Ahashuerus. Assyrian Furniture: Nimrod's Palace—Mr. George Smith quoted. Egyptian Furniture: Specimens in the British Museum—the Workman's Stool—various articles of Domestic Furniture—Dr. Birch quoted. Greek Furniture: The Bas Reliefs in the British Museum—the Chest of Cypselus—Laws and... more...

I. THE PERIOD OF LEGEND The blending of fact and fancy which men call legend reached its fullest and richest expression in the golden age of Greece, and thus it is to Greek mythology that one must turn for the best form of any legend which foreshadows history. Yet the prevalence of legends regarding flight, existing in the records of practically every race, shows that this form of transit was a dream... more...

BOYHOOD DAYS.   "I'll serve his youth, for youth must have his course,   For being restrained it makes him ten times worse;   His pride, his riot, all that may be named,   Time may recall, and all his madness tamed." My Dear Reader: I first saw the light of day in a little town called Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum River in the State of Ohio, on the first day of August,... more...

Preface The kindly reception accorded to the first volume of the Historical Nights Entertainment, issued in December of 1917, has encouraged me to prepare the second series here assembled. As in the case of the narratives that made up the first volume, I set out again with the same ambitious aim of adhering scrupulously in every instance to actual, recorded facts; and once again I find it desirable at... more...

THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERICA Let me begin this lecture with a scene in the North Atlantic 863 years since. “Bjarne Grimolfson was blown with his ship into the Irish Ocean; and there came worms and the ship began to sink under them.  They had a boat which they had payed with seals’ blubber, for that the sea-worms will not hurt.  But when they got into the boat they saw that it would not hold... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Editor of this little volume does not deem it incumbent upon him to explain in what way the author’s manuscript came into his possession. He hopes it may be enough for him to say, that the writer believed himself to be the only person whose memory retained most of the incidents and anecdotes herein recorded; and a long and familiar acquaintance with his character enables the Editor... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE In that somewhat distant year 1875, when the telegraph and the Atlantic cable were the most wonderful things in the world, a tall young professor of elocution was desperately busy in a noisy machine-shop that stood in one of the narrow streets of Boston, not far from Scollay Square. It was a very hot afternoon in June, but the young professor had forgotten the heat... more...

PREFACE. There were no prefatory remarks to the first and second editions of the following work. It was thought, when the printer made his final call for copy, that a preface might be written with more propriety if the public should indicate sufficient interest in the book to make its improvement and enlargement necessary. That interest, owing to the theme rather than the treatment, has not been... more...