Pleasant Ways in Science

It is not, however, necessary to go beyond our own country for evidence of the destructive action of water. We have had during the past few years very striking evidence in this...

At this stage a very eminent naturalist entered the field—Professor Owen. He dwelt first on a certain characteristic of Captain M’Quhæ’s letter which no student of science could...

If the above explanation should still seem to require closer attention than the general reader may be disposed to give, the following, suggested by a friend of mine—a very skilf...

It is strange that the problem of determining the sun’s distance, which for many ages was regarded as altogether insoluble, and which even during later years had seemed fairly s...

It is easy to perceive the essential difference between this way of applying the method and that depending on the attempted recognition of changes of colour. A dark line in the...

There is another consideration, which, so far as I know, has not hitherto received much attention, but should certainly be taken into account in the attempt to interpret the rea...

When this discovery was effected, men made the most important and, I think, the most satisfactory step towards the determination of cyclic associations between solar and terrest...

The coast of Greenland was explored as far east as longitude 50° 40´ (west), land being seen as far as 82° 54´ north, longitude 48° 33´ west. Lastly, a party under Commander Mar...

The reasoning, however, if not altogether unsatisfactory, is by no means so conclusive as Herr Vögel appears to think. It is not clear how the incandescent portion of the surfac...

The fibrine and albumen in the animal frame are derived exclusively from vegetables. For although we seem to derive a portion of the supply from animal food, yet the fibrine and...

A curious effect is produced if very fine powder be strewn along with the sand over the plate. For it is found that the dust gathers, not where the nodes or places of no vibrati...

Oersted discovered in 1820 that a magnetic needle poised horizontally is deflected when the galvanic current passes above it (parallel to the needle’s length) or below it. If th...

This theory corresponds far better also with observed facts than the theory of Meyer and Klein, in other respects than simply in antecedent probability. It can easily be shown t...

If we limit our attention to any given month of winter, we find the same mixture of cold and dry with wet and open weather as we are familiar with at present. Take, for instance...

Now a wave extending right athwart the Pacific Ocean, and having a cross breadth of more than 120 miles, would be discernible as a marked feature of the disc of our earth, seen...

As to the intelligence exhibited in the conduct of the chimpanzee and orang-outang, various opinions may be formed according to the various circumstances under which the animals...

This account, if accepted in all its details, would certainly indicate that an animal of some species before unknown had been captured. But it is doubtful how much reliance can...

It had not yet been shown whether ozone was a simple or a compound gas. If simple, of course it could be but another form of oxygen. At first, however, the chances seemed agains...

At the meeting of the British Association in 1876 Sir W. Thomson gave the following account of the performance of this instrument at the Philadelphia Exhibition:—“In the Canadia...

At Chanavaya, a small town at the guano-loading dépôt known as Pabellon de Pica, only two houses were left standing out of four hundred. Here the earthquake shock was specially...

But this is little. Wonderful as is the extent of the sidereal system as thus viewed, even more wonderful is its infinite variety. We know how largely modern discoveries have in...

But now, in conclusion, let us briefly consider the great difficulty of the theory that man is descended from some ape-like, arboreal, speechless animal,—the difficulty of bridg...

In the second place, we ought to find no signs of the aggregation of lucid stars into streams or clustering groups. If we should find such associated groups, we must abandon the...

“As to the spectrum of nitrogen and the existence of this element in the sun there is not yet certainty. Nevertheless, even by comparing the diffused nitrogen lines of this part...

In working the Morse instrument, the operator at B depresses the handle H´. Suppose that this handle is kept depressed by a spring, and that a long strip of paper passing unifor...

But who could hope to measure a velocity approaching 200,000 miles in a second? At a first view the task seems hopeless. Wheatstone, however, showed how it might be accomplished...

The instrument is composed of three parts mainly; namely, a receiving, a recording, and a transmitting apparatus. The receiving apparatus consists of a curved tube, one end of w...

But this view, like the others, was destined to be overthrown. Muschenbroek, when engaged in a series of observations intended to establish the new view, made a discovery which...

On the western side of the North Atlantic Channel—so to term the part lying between Greenland and Spitzbergen—the nearest approach towards the Pole was made by the Dutch in 1670...

We find twelve constellations or signs of the zodiac are mentioned as set to fix the year. I am inclined to consider that the preceding words, “stars, their appearance in figure...

Dr. Andrew Wilson, in an interesting paper, in which he maintains that sea-serpent tales are not to be treated with derision, but are worthy of serious consideration, “supported...

But Professor Young, at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., has done much more than merely obtain evidence by the new method that the sun is rotating as we already knew. He has su...

“However numerous the troop may be, if one is wounded it is immediately abandoned by the rest, unless, indeed, it happen to be a young one. Then the mother, who either carries i...

The hope that famines may be abated, or, at least, some of their most grievous consequences forestalled by means of solar observatories, does not appear very clearly made out. R...

OTHER SUNS THAN OURS: A Series of Essays on Suns—Old, Young, and Dead. With other Science Gleanings. Two Essays on Whist, and Correspondence with Sir John Herschel. With 9 Star...

[10] It may be briefly sketched, perhaps, in a note. The force necessary to draw the earth inwards in such sort as to make her follow her actual course is proportional to (i) th...