Non-Classifiable Books

INTRODUCTION I. LIFE Thomas de Quincey was born in Manchester on the 15th of August, 1785. His father was a man of high character and great taste for literature as well as a successful man of business; he died, most unfortunately, when Thomas was quite young. Very soon after our author's birth the family removed to The Farm, and later to Greenhay, a larger country place near Manchester. In 1796 De... more...

HE histories of the mechanical clock and the magnetic compass must be accounted amongst the most tortured of all our efforts to understand the origins of man's important inventions. Ignorance has too often been replaced by conjecture, and conjecture by misquotation and the false authority of "common knowledge" engendered by the repetition of legendary histories from one generation of... more...

I have no experience whatever respecting tobacco: my general opinion is adverse to its use by a healthy man; but that opinion is not founded on any personal experience, nor on any scientific knowledge, as to give it any value for others. My opinion respecting alcohol is that it is a valuable and necessary ingredient in forming and preserving some articles of diet—yeast bread, for example, which can... more...

FREE SHIPS. The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade. It may seem surprising that an American House of Representatives should have been so ignorant of the meaning of a common word as to apply the term "commerce" to the carrying trade, when in the session of 1869 it commissioned Hon. John Lynch, of Maine, and his associated committee "to investigate the cause of the decadence of... more...

ADVERTISEMENT. The following observations were thrown together as the result of communications with several gentlemen locally acquainted with the Isthmus of Panama, and who expressed to the writer their astonishment, that amidst the numerous undertakings, of more or less utility, which science has realised in our time, one so important to the whole commercial world, so easy of accomplishment, and so... more...

IINTRODUCTION The best things in an artist's work are so much a matter of intuition, that there is much to be said for the point of view that would altogether discourage intellectual inquiry into artistic phenomena on the part of the artist. Intuitions are shy things and apt to disappear if looked into too closely. And there is undoubtedly a danger that too much knowledge and training may supplant... more...

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN WOODWARD AND FIVE SEAMEN IN THE ISLAND OF CELEBES. In the year 1791, Woodward sailed from Boston in the ship Robert Morris, Captain Hay, for the East Indies. On his arrival there he was employed in making country voyages until the 20th of January, when he sailed as chief-mate in an American ship from Batavia bound to Manilla. In passing through the straits of Macassar, they found... more...

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. A paper read January 29th, 1878, before the New York Free-Trade Club. The questions relating to copyright belong naturally to the sphere of political economy. They have to do with the laws governing production, and with the principles regulating supply and demand; and they are directly dependent upon a due determining of the proper functions of legislation, and of the relations... more...

INTRODUCTION. The investigation, the results of which are reported in this bulletin, was undertaken for the purpose of securing information in regard to the composition of brewery products made in this country. The main object of this investigation was to find, if possible, a means of distinguishing beers and ales made entirely from malt from those made from malt together with other cereal products,... more...

CHAPTER I.INTRODUCTORY. Why this Treatise does not contain all Knowledge.—Attention of Scientific Men attracted to Drainage.—Lieutenant Maury's Suggestions.—Ralph Waldo Emerson's Views.—Opinions of J. H. Klippart, Esq.; of Professor Mapes; B. P. Johnston, Esq.; Governor Wright, Mr. Custis, &c.—Prejudice against what is English.—Acknowledgements to our Friends at Home and... more...