Non-Classifiable Books

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...

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...

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...

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 Ignorance has too often been replaced by conjecture, and conjecture by misquotation and the false authority of "common knowledge" engendered by the repetition of legendary histories from one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...

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...

EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION In any consideration of the origin of man we are necessarily restricted to two views: one, that he is the outcome of a development from the lower animals; the other, that he came into existence through direct creation. No third mode of origin can be conceived, and we may safely confine ourselves to a review of these two claims. They are the opposites of each other in every... more...

Bebel's work, "Die Frau und der Socialismus," rendered in this English version with the title "Woman under Socialism," is the best-aimed shot at the existing social system, both strategically and tactically considered. It is wise tactics and strategy to attack an enemy on his weakest side. The Woman Question is the weakest link in the capitalist mail. The workingman, we know, is a... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Assaying has for its object the determination of the quantities of those constituents of a material which add to or detract from its value in the arts and manufactures. The methods of assaying are mainly those of analytical chemistry, and are limited by various practical considerations to the determination of the constituents of a small parcel, which is frequently only a few... more...

THE ART OF TALKING The charm of conversation chiefly depends upon the adaptability of the participants. It is a great accomplishment to be able to enter gently and agreeably into the moods of others, and to give way to them with grace and readiness. The spirit of conversation is oftentimes more important than the ideas expressed. What we are rather than what we say has the most permanent influence upon... more...

According to Plato's famous myth, two gifts of the gods equipped man for living: the one, arts and inventions to supply him with the means of livelihood; the other, reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of societies and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Agencies for mastery over nature and agencies for coöperation among men remain the two great sources of human power. But... more...