Science/Nature Books

The use of electricity in the reduction of metals from their ores is extending so rapidly, and the methods of its generation and application have been so greatly improved within a few years, that the possibility of its becoming the chief agent in the metallurgy of the future may now be admitted, even in cases where the present cost of treatment is too high to be commercially advantageous. The refining... more...

batalões turned from the open waters of the lower Tapajos River into the igarapé, the lily-smothered shallows that often mark an Indian settlement in the jungles of Brazil. One of the two half-breed rubber-gatherers suddenly stopped his batalõe by thrusting a paddle against a giant clump of lilies. In a corruption of the Tupi dialect, he called over to the white man occupying the other frail craft.... more...

THE CONFLICT. The pyramids, temples and palaces of Thebes are monuments of the ancient intellects of our race. Great thinkers only were capable of giving to the world the Vedas, the Apollo Belvidere and the Parthenon. The arts and astronomy of Egypt harmonize very poorly with the idea that modern scientists have all the wisdom and intelligence known in the history of the ages. Among the wonderful... more...

onfound it, Carnes, I am on my vacation!” “I know it, Doctor, and I hate to disturb you, but I felt that I simply had to. I have one of the weirdest cases on my hands that I have ever been mixed up in and I think that you’ll forgive me for calling you when I tell you about it.” How could a human body be found actually splintered––broken into sharp fragments like a shattered glass! Once... more...

Two miles west of the village of Laketon there lived an aged recluse who was known only as Old Crompton. As far back as the villagers could remember he had visited the town regularly twice a month, each time tottering his lonely way homeward with a load of provisions. He appeared to be well supplied with funds, but purchased sparingly as became a miserly hermit. And so vicious was his tongue that few... more...

obert Thorpe reached languidly for a cigarette and, with lazy fingers, extracted a lighter from his pocket. "Be a sport," he repeated to the gray haired man across the table. "Be a sport, Admiral, and send me across on a destroyer. Never been on a destroyer except in port. It ... would be a new experience ... enjoy it a lot...." In the palm-shaded veranda of this club-house in Manila,... more...

 read the telegram for the second time. Then I folded it up, put it in my pocket, and pressed the little button on my desk. My mind was made up.To save Imee's race of Men-Who-Returned-To-The-Sea, two Land-Men answer the challenge of the dreaded Rorn, corsairs of the under-seas."Miss Fentress, I'm leaving this afternoon on an extended trip. The Florida address will reach me after... more...

 hope, Carnes," said Dr. Bird, "that we get good fishing." "Good fishing? Will you please tell me what you are talking about?" "I am talking about fishing, old dear. Have you seen the evening paper?" "No. What's that got to do with it?" Dr. Bird tossed across the table a copy of the Washington Post folded so as to bring uppermost an item on page three. Carnes... more...

his news," said Cliff Hynes, pointing to the newspaper, "means the end of homo Americanus."Out of the Antarctic it came—a wall of viscid, grey, half-human jelly, absorbing and destroying all life that it encountered.The newspaper in question was the hour-sheet of the International Broadcast Association, just delivered by pneumatic tube at the laboratory. It was stamped 1961, Month 13, Day... more...

THE ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK. HIS is an American bird, and has been described under various names by various authors. It is found in the lower parts of Pennsylvania, in the state of New York, and in New England, particularly in autumn, when the berries of the sour gum are ripe, on the kernels of which it eagerly feeds. As a singer it has few superiors. It frequently sings at night, and even all night,... more...