THE LAWN: HOW TO MAKE IT AND HOW TO TAKE CARE OF IT HE owner of the average small home seldom goes to the expense of employing the professional gardener to do the work of lawn-making. Sometimes he cannot afford to do so. Sometimes skilled labor is not obtainable. The consequence is, in the majority of cases, the lawn,—or what, by courtesy, is called by that name,—is a sort of evolution which is an... more...

I   t was shortly after ten o'clock one morning when Ezra Simpkins, a reporter from the Boston Banner, entered the Oriental Building, that dingy pile of brick and brownstone which covers a block on Sixth Avenue, and began to hunt for the office of the Royal Society of Egyptian Exploration and Research. After wandering through a labyrinth of halls, he finally found it on the second floor. A few... more...

I: ABOUT THIS TRANSLATION It was with considerable reluctance that I abandoned in favour of the present undertaking what had long been a favourite project: that of a new edition of Shelton's "Don Quixote," which has now become a somewhat scarce book. There are some—and I confess myself to be one—for whom Shelton's racy old version, with all its defects, has a charm that no modern... more...

Chapter I Wonderful News "Letter for you, Tom Swift." "Ah, thanks, Mr. Wilson. This is the first mail I've had this week. You've been neglecting me," and the young inventor took the missive which the Shopton postman handed to him over the gate, against which Tom was leaning one fine, warm Spring day. "Well, I get around as often as I can, Tom. You're not home a great... more...

Chapter 1 I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the... more...

Preface Medicine, as the art of preserving and restoring health, is the rightful office of the great army of earnest and qualified American physicians. But their utmost sincerity and science are hampered by trying restrictions with three great classes of people: those on whom the family physician cannot call every day; those on whom he cannot call in time; and those on whom he cannot call at all. To... more...

CHAP. I. Education is at present obviously in a transition state. The public mind has of late become alive to the importance of the subject; and all persons are beginning to feel awake to the truth, that something is yet wanting to insure efficiency and permanence to the labours of the teacher. The public will not be satisfied till some decided change has taken place; and many are endeavouring to grope... more...

Advantages of Common-Battery Operation. The advantages of the common-battery system of operation, alluded to in Chapter XIII, may be briefly summarized here. The main gain in the common-battery system of supply is the simplification of the subscribers' instruments, doing away with the local batteries and the magneto generators, and the concentration of all these many sources of current into one... more...

I. Let us visit Switzerland and look around us in the glorious country of mountains, where the forest rises out of steep rocky walls; let us ascend to the dazzling snow-fields, and thence descend to the green plains, where the rivulets and brooks hasten away, foaming up, as if they feared not to vanish, as they reached the sea. The sun beams upon the deep valley, it burns also upon the heavy masses of... more...

THE MEANING OF THE TANK CORPS TANKS! To the uninitiated—as were we in those days when we returned to the Somme, too late to see the tanks make their first dramatic entrance—the name conjures up a picture of an iron monster, breathing fire and exhaling bullets and shells, hurling itself against the enemy, unassailable by man and impervious to the most deadly engines of war; sublime, indeed, in its... more...