PREFACE. This little treatise was written for the purpose of supplying a want felt by the author while giving instruction upon the subject. It was intended for an aid to the young Engineer, and is not to be considered as a complete substitute for the more elaborate works on the subject. The first portion of this work mentions the various strains to which beams are subjected, and gives the formulæ used... more...

Eddie Dirrul had destroyed the message seconds after reading it. Yet, as he left the pneumotube from the University, he felt as if it were burning a hole in his pocket. It had come to him from Paul Sorgel, the new top-agent from the Planet Vinin. It had been written in High Vininese. For a moment the alien language had slowed Eddie's reaction to its contents, as had the shocking nature of its... more...

CHAPTER I LEWES "Lewes is the most romantic situation I ever saw"; thus Defoe, and the capital of Sussex shares with Rye and Arundel the distinction of having a continental picturesqueness more in keeping with old France than with one of the home counties of England. This, however, is only the impression made by the town when viewed as a whole; its individual houses, its churches and castle,... more...

LITTLE BETA AND THE LAME GIANT. Near the top of a high, high mountain there lived a great giant. He was a very wonderful giant indeed. From the door of his rocky cave he could look into the distance and see for miles and miles over the surrounding country, even to the point where the land touched the great ocean, yet so clearly that he could observe the smile or the frown on a child's face three... more...

THE AUXILIARIES The Navy is very old and very wise. Much of her wisdom is on record and available for reference; but more of it works in the unconscious blood of those who serve her. She has a thousand years of experience, and can find precedent or parallel for any situation that the force of the weather or the malice of the King's enemies may bring about. The main principles of sea-warfare hold... more...

INTRODUCTORY In all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who gained a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which we know by the name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to the English-speaking world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who flourished exceedingly in the seventeenth century, and of whom many chronicles exist: principally owing to the labours of... more...

PREFACE. I am unwilling that this volume should go forth to the world without some account of its origin and of its contents. I. Appointed last year, (without solicitation on his part,) to the office of Select Preacher, the present writer was called upon at the commencement of the October Term to address the University. His Sermon, (the first in the volume,) was simply intended to embody the advice... more...

EVOLUTION. All subjects pertaining to our knowledge of the soul are too subtle to be weighed and proved by external intellect alone. Our lives are ruled by such a hotch-potch of inherited beliefs and tendencies, that it is almost impossible for us to use any discrimination concerning them; or to arraign ourselves before the tribunal of our own better judgment in such manner as to enable us to separate... more...

THE CHOICE I Pondering over Alison's note, he suddenly recalled and verified some phrases which had struck him that summer on reading Harnack's celebrated History of Dogma, and around these he framed his reply. "To act as if faith in eternal life and in the living Christ was the simplest thing in the world, or a dogma to which one has to submit, is irreligious. . . It is Christian to pray... more...

THE ARRAIGNMENT I Looking backward, Hodder perceived that he had really come to the momentous decision of remaining at St. John's in the twilight of an evening when, on returning home from seeing Kate Marcy at Mr. Bentley's he had entered the darkening church. It was then that his mission had appeared to him as a vision. Every day, afterward, his sense and knowledge of this mission had grown... more...