EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS. [Illustration: BALBOA.] GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.—The people of Europe had then never heard of America. About that time, a great desire for geographical knowledge was awakened. The compass and the astrolabe—an instrument for reckoning latitude—had been already invented. Voyagers were no longer compelled to creep along the shore, but began... more...

INTRODUCTION. 1. Tongue, Speech, Language.—We speak of the “English tongue” or of the “French language”; and we say of two nations that they “do not understand each other’s speech.” The existence of these three words—speech, tongue, language—proves to us that a language is something spoken,—that it is a number of sounds; and that the writing or printing of it upon paper is a quite... more...

In this translation, made with the author's consent, my chief object being to convey his entire meaning, I have unhesitatingly rendered the French very freely sometimes, and again very literally. Style has thus suffered for the sake of clearness and brevity, necessary to secure and retain the attention of readers of this class of books. This same conciseness has also been imposed on our author by... more...

It is well known that the number of elements has grown from four in the days of the Greeks to 103 at present, but the change in methods needed for their discovery is not so well known. Up until 1939, only 88 naturally occurring elements had been discovered. It took a dramatic modern technique (based on Ernest O. Lawrence's Nobel-prize-winning atom smasher, the cyclotron) to synthesize the most... more...

CHAP. I. Containing a brief account of divers dispensations of God in the world, to the time he was pleased to raise this despised people, called Quakers. Divers have been the dispensations of God since the creation of the world, unto the sons of men; but the great end of all of them, has been the renown of his own excellent name in the creation and restoration of man: man, the emblem of himself, as a... more...

CHAPTER I DISCOVERY OF RADIO-ACTIVITY The object of this brief treatise is to give a simple account of the development of our knowledge of radio-activity and its bearing on chemical and physical science. Mathematical processes will be omitted, as it is sufficient to give the assured results from calculations which are likely to be beyond the training of the reader. Experimental evidence will be given... more...

CHAPTER I "God bless them all! they are good lads." It was now close on eight o'clock and more than two hours ago since first the dawn broke over that low-lying horizon line which seems so far away, and tinged the vast immensity of the plain first with grey and then with mauve and pale-toned emerald, with rose and carmine and crimson and blood-red, until the sun—triumphant and glorious... more...

A TRIBUTE It is an accepted truth, I believe, that every novelist embodies in the personalities of his heroes some of his own traits of character. Those who were intimately acquainted with William Otis Lillibridge could not fail to recognize this in a marked degree. To a casual reader, the heroes of his five novels might perhaps suggest five totally different personalities, but one who knows them well... more...

I am a bachelor uncle. That, as a mere fact, might happen to anybody; but I am a bachelor uncle by internal fitness. I am one essentially, just as I am an individual of the Caucasian division of the human race; and if, through untoward circumstances—which Heaven forbid—I should lose my present position, I shouldn't be surprised if you saw me out in the "Herald" under "Situations... more...

Into My Own ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees,So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,But stretched away unto the edge of doom.I should not be withheld but that some dayInto their vastness I should steal away,Fearless of ever finding open land,Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.I do not see why I should e'er turn back,Or... more...