nterplanetary flight having been perfected, the planets and moons of the Sol system having been colonized, Man turned his attention to the stars. And ran into a stone wall. After three decades of trying, scientists reluctantly concluded that a faster-than-light drive was an impossibility, at least within the realm of any known theory of the Universe. They gave up. But a government does not give up so... more...

In sending a second impression of the following little work into the world after a lapse of four years from the publication of the former edition, it may be right to state, that my views on the subject of it, have undergone no change in the way of relinquishment; but on the contrary the experience of every day in my own history,--every observation I have been able to make on the history of those with... more...

When a book about the literature of the eighteen-nineties was given by Mr. Holbrook Jackson to the world, I looked eagerly in the index for Soames, Enoch. It was as I feared: he was not there. But everybody else was. Many writers whom I had quite forgotten, or remembered but faintly, lived again for me, they and their work, in Mr. Holbrook Jackson's pages. The book was as thorough as it was... more...

THE SON’S VETO CHAPTER I To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a wonder and a mystery.  Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of ingenious art.  One could understand such weavings and coilings being wrought to last... more...

Most illustrious and thrice valorous champions, gentlemen and others, who willingly apply your minds to the entertainment of pretty conceits and honest harmless knacks of wit; you have not long ago seen, read, and understood the great and inestimable Chronicle of the huge and mighty giant Gargantua, and, like upright faithfullists, have firmly believed all to be true that is contained in them, and have... more...

THE CITY OF NEW YORK. The City of New York is the largest and most important in America. Its corporate limits embrace the whole of Manhattan Island, on which it is situated, and which is bounded by the Hudson, the East and Harlem rivers, and by Spuyten Duyvil creek, which last connects the Harlem with the Hudson. Being almost entirely surrounded by deep water, and lying within sight of the ocean, and... more...

CHAPTER I IN THE FIRCONE TAVERN In the dark main room of the Fircone Tavern the warm June air seemed to have lost all its delicacy, like a degraded angel. It was sodden through and through, as with the lees of wine; it was stained and shamed with the smells of hams and cheeses; it was thick and heavy as if with the breaths of all the rogues and all the vagabonds that had haunted the hostelry from its... more...

INTRODUCTION It might seem that about Blaise Pascal, and about the two works on which his fame is founded, everything that there is to say had been said. The details of his life are as fully known as we can expect to know them; his mathematical and physical discoveries have been treated many times; his religious sentiment and his theological views have been discussed again and again; and his prose... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                            AUGUST & SEPTEMBER                                  1666 August 1st. Up betimes to the settling of my last month's accounts, and I bless God I find them very clear, and that I am worth L5700, the most that ever my book did yet make... more...

FARCOT'S SIX HORSE POWER STEAM ENGINE. This horizontal steam engine, recently constructed by Mr. E. D. Farcot for actuating a Cance dynamo-electric machine, consists of a cast iron bed frame, A, upon which are mounted all the parts. The two jacketed, cylinders, B and C, of different diameters, each contains a simple-acting piston. The two pistons are connected by one rod in common, which is fixed... more...