Curiosities of Science, Past and Present A Book for Old and Young

The Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean may be considered as one sheet of water covering an area quite equal in extent to one half of that embraced by the whole surface of the ea...

Although, according to Bessel, 25,000 cubic miles of water flow in every six hours from one quarter of the earth to another, and the temperature is augmented by the ebb and flow...

Sir John Leslie used to attribute the stability of this tower to the cohesion of the mortar it is built with being sufficient to maintain it erect, in spite of its being out of...

A philosopher of the East, with a richness of imagery truly oriental, describes the Atmosphere as “a spherical shell which surrounds our planet to a depth which is unknown to us...

As the segments advance they get broader, while the film becomes thinner and thinner. The several orders disappear upwards as the film becomes too thin to reflect their colours,...

In the upper portion of the basin of the Orinoco and its tributaries, Nature has several times repeated the enigmatical phenomenon of the so-called “Black Waters.” The Atabapo,...

The furnace which he employs for drying his moulds is about fourteen feet long, twelve feet high, and twelve feet broad. When it is raised to its highest temperature, with the d...

Long before the introduction of the Log, hour-glasses were used to tell the distance in sailing. Columbus, Juan de la Cosa, Sebastian Cabot, and Vasco de Gama, were not acquaint...

The invention of the rotating mirror is due to Wheatstone, who made an experiment with it to determine the velocity of the propagation of the discharge of a Leyden battery. The...

From the fossil-bone caverns in Wellington Valley, in 1830, were sent to Professor Owen several bones which belonged, as it turned out, to gigantic kangaroos, immensely larger t...

The Temple of Serapis at Puzzuoli, near Naples, is perhaps, of all the structures raised by the hands of man, the one which affords most instruction to a geologist. It has not o...

M. F. W. G. Struve gives as the splendid result of the united studies of MM. Argelander, O. Struve, and Peters, grounded on observations made at the three Russian observatories...

Till within the last eighty years, it appears to have been the received opinion that the intensity of terrestrial magnetism was the same at all parts of the earth’s surface. In...

M. Schwabe, of Dessau, has discovered that the abundance or paucity of spots displayed by the sun’s surface is subject to a law of periodicity. This has been confirmed by M. Wol...

Professor Agassiz considers that the very fact of certain stratified rocks, even among the oldest formations, being almost entirely made up of fragments of organised beings, sho...

This instrument consists of a glass tube, sealed at one end, and furnished with a brass cap at the other end, through which the air is admitted by a very small aperture. Nearly...

The rod used in measuring a base-line is commonly about ten feet long; and the astronomer may be said truly to apply that very rod to mete the distance of the stars. An error in...

Shortly after Mr. Crosse’s return to Fyne Court, while pursuing his experiments for forming crystals from a highly caustic solution out of contact with atmospheric air, he was g...

Galileo was confident that the most important part of his contributions to the knowledge of the solar system was his Theory of the Tides--a theory which all succeeding astronome...

These are truly astounding. Sir William Herschel estimated the distance of the annular nebula between Beta and Gamma Lyræ to be from our system 950 times that of Sirius; and a g...

At the date of the erection of the Pyramid of Gizeh, which precedes the present epoch by nearly 4000 years, the longitudes of all the stars were less by 55° 45′ than at present....

What myriads has the microscope revealed to us of the rich luxuriance of animal life in the ocean, and conveyed to our astonished senses a consciousness of the universality of l...

In the great eruption of Vesuvius, in August 1779, which Sir William Hamilton witnessed from his villa at Pausilippo in the bay of Naples, the volcano sent up white sulphureous...

Long tubes were certainly employed by Arabian astronomers, and very probably also by the Greeks and Romans; the exactness of their observations being in some degree attributable...

In Professor Airy’s experiments with the electric telegraph to determine the difference of longitude between Greenwich and Brussels, the time spent by the electric current in pa...

[7] When at Pisa, many years since, Captain Basil Hall investigated the origin and divergence of the tower from the perpendicular, and established completely to his own satisfac...

In the experiments made before the Atlantic Telegraph was finally decided on, 2000 miles of subterranean and submarine telegraphic wires, ramifying through England and Ireland a...

“There have been in the history of Art, four grand styles of imitating Nature--Tempera, Encaustic, Fresco, and Oil. These, together with the minor modes of Painting, we propose...

The demand for Sea-water to supply the Marine Aquarium--now to be seen in so many houses--induced Mr. Gosse to attempt the manufacture of Sea-water, more especially as the const...

The original book apparently used a smaller font for multiple reasons, but as those reasons were not always clear to the Transcriber, smaller text is indented by 2 spaces in the...