CHAPTER I This book deals with the Bronze Age principally from the point of view of the implements and weapons in use in Ireland during that period. It is unnecessary to state that the materials for writing anything like a full account of the civilization or political organization during the Bronze Age do not exist; and even the ethnological affinities of the dominant race that inhabited Ireland during... more...

INTRODUCTION. The money to found a British Museum was raised by a lottery in the middle of the last century. Sir Hans Sloane having offered his books and museum of natural history to Parliament, for less than half its value (20,000£.), it was purchased, together with the famous Harleian and Cottonian MSS., and deposited in Montague House, Bloomsbury, which had been bought of the Earl of Halifax, for... more...

CHAPTER I The need of a large sum of money in a great hurry is the root of many noble ambitions, in whose branches roost strange companies of birds, pecking away for dollars that grow—or do not—on bushes. And it was in such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon a limb of life beside Mr. Godfrey Vandeford of Broadway, New York. Their joint endeavors made a great... more...

CHAPTER I The Man Hunt Up on the hill, high above the twinkling lights of the busy little ranching town of Vernock, at the open dining-room window of a pretty, leafy-bowered, six-roomed bungalow, a girl, just blossoming into womanhood, stood in her night robes and dressing gown, braiding her dark hair. She was slight of form, but health glowed from her expressive face. She was dreamily contemplating... more...

PREFACE. The Author, owing to circumstances, has had access to authentic documents and facts, relating to one of the most remarkable shipwrecks which have ever happened, that of the troop-ships Runnymede and Briton, on the morning of the 12th of November, 1844, upon one of the Andaman Islands. In reading these, it struck him forcibly, that the circumstances, if thrown into the shape of a narrative,... more...

I. A Change of Lodging The glass-domed "palm-room" of the Grand Continental Hotel Magnifique in Rome is of vasty heights and distances, filled with a mellow green light which filters down languidly through the upper foliage of tall palms, so that the two hundred people who may be refreshing or displaying themselves there at the tea-hour have something the look of under-water creatures playing... more...

CHAPTER I RETURNING FROM A GREAT GAME "Zip! Boom! Ah!" "Hurrah for Putnam Hall!" "Let her go, Peleg, lively now, and mind you don't upset us, or we'll use you worse than we did the football." "All right, young gents. All in? Hold fast, everybody, or I won't be responsible, nohow, if you drop off. Git along, Jack; up with ye, Sally!" And with a crack of the... more...

CHAPTER 1. THE COUNCIL OF WAYS AND MEANS This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking. There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, "'Alas!" said Hildegarde with... more...

INTRODUCTORY. The New York and Brooklyn Bridge was formally opened on Thursday, May 24th, 1883, with befitting pomp and ceremonial, in the presence of the largest multitude that ever gathered in the two cities. From the announcement by the Trustees of the date which was to mark the turning-over of the work to the public, it was evident that the popular demonstration would be upon a scale commensurate... more...

The Himalayas. Who has not heard of the Himalayas—those Titanic masses of mountains that interpose themselves between the hot plains of India and the cold table-lands of Thibet—a worthy barrier between the two greatest empires in the world, the Mogul and the Celestial? The veriest tyro in geography can tell you that they are the tallest mountains on the surface of the earth; that their summits—a... more...