Popular Books on Natural Science For Practical Use in Every Household, for Readers of All Classes

Natural philosophers have considered and investigated subjects that often appear to the unscientific man beyond the reach of human intelligence. Among these subjects may be reck...

Ever since the great discovery of the immortal Newton, it has been known that all celestial bodies attract one another, and that this attraction is the greater, the greater the...

Cavendish, an English physicist, made the first successful attempt to determine the attractive power of large bodies. His first care was, to render the attraction of the earth a...

In former times, when a man would speak of the rapidity with which light traverses space, most of his hearers thought it to be a scientific exaggeration or a myth. At present, h...

Whenever a wire is to be magnetized by an electric machine, at the moment it touches the machine, a bright spark is seen at the end of the wire. The same spark is seen also at t...

Conceive a man, gifted with the keenest intellect, but not knowing from experience, that sucklings grow and become men, and imagine what he would say, if you were to tell him this:

Of course we know that hunger forces us to do so. But every one is aware also, that above all we must ask, whence hunger arises; that we must first get better acquainted with hu...

This idea may frighten us; it may be terrible to our hearts; but let us frankly confess, it is a true one! Man consists only of such substances as he has consumed; he is, in fac...

In the preceding article it was stated, that the food of the child which lives on mother's milk, consists in its primary elements of peculiar substances. These are principally o...

When the child has freed itself from the body of its mother, it consists of blood, flesh, and bones, which heretofore were formed and nourished by the blood of the mother.

People were astonished, when Liebig, the great naturalist, called blood the "liquid flesh;" we are correct even in going further and calling the blood "man's body in a liquid st...

Thus we have seen that the human body is vital blood, transformed and solidified. Now, blood is food transformed; food consists of primary elements prepared and changed by natur...

That water is essential for the support and renewal of the body is clear to every one. The flesh we eat, contains nearly eighty per cent. of water, and yet a man must die, if he...

In obedience to the demands of modern science, numerous experiments about nutrition have been made, in regard to digestion as well as to the effects of hunger and of various ele...

From time to time we hear of plans to illuminate whole cities by a great light from a single point. The credulity of the newspaper public about affairs belonging to Physics is s...

It was demonstrated above, that it is impossible to illuminate large distances by a single light. Yet we must acknowledge that nature herself does this, and that the sun is the...

Many people are greatly surprised, that when a new planet is discovered--and within late years this has been frequently the case--astronomers should be able to determine a few d...

When Leverrier was working at his great discovery he did not strike out a new path in science; he was supported by a great law of nature, the base of all astronomical knowledge....

Perhaps the question presents itself to the thinking reader: If it be true that the heavenly bodies attract each other, why do not the planets attract one another in such a mann...

A few years ago, we had "green Christmas and white Easter," and spring was of course far behind when Pentecost arrived. We had still cold and rainy days, while the nights were f...

As we have stated above, there exist fixed rules about the weather; these rules are simple and easy to compute. But our computations are often disturbed by a great many circumst...

Though the sun produces summer and winter, and although his beams call forth heat, and the absence of heat causes intense cold on the surface of the globe, yet the sun alone doe...

The air which is continually rising in the hot zones and circulating towards the poles and back again to the equator, is the prime source of the wind. This latter modifies the t...

Every housewife that but once in her life hung up clothes to dry, knows full well that air absorbs moisture when passing over, or through, wet objects. If she wishes to dry her...

So soon as a stratum of air that contains water-particles, meets with a colder stratum, these airy particles of water immediately flow together to form fog. But fog, as has been...

In the preceding chapter it was shown how warm air produces evaporation, and how cold air causes rain and snow. In this chapter we desire to demonstrate how the reverse may take...

He who considers how water when heated is transformed into steam, and how this steam has absorbed the whole portion of heat that was necessary to form it, will easily understand...

If we cast a glance upon the phenomena of our atmosphere, we find that they are indeed computable, and that the weather in general may be foretold, even for large countries, wit...

We have endeavored to explain why our weather is so uncertain and incomputable. As we have seen, it has its origin in this, that in our regions the warmer equatorial currents of...

Having now explained the rules referring to the conditions of our weather, and proved that owing to the geographical position of our country, to determine the weather in advance...

The weather prophecies of the almanac are a disgrace to our advanced age. Those who still print them deserve that their productions should nowhere find sale. We are not of those...

The idea that the moon exercises an influence upon the state of the weather is very general, not only with the people, but also among the better educated. What induces them to e...

According to this, it is very easy to determine what a man must eat in order to live; what kind of food can best maintain his health; what constantly renews his working-power; w...

In the preceding article we said that the rapid conversion and waste of the blood is the main point in nutrition. In the examination of food, only such articles ought to be pron...

We come now to consider the various articles of food in detail. We shall take for guide neither the luxurious life of the rich, who, on account of his disordered stomach, consta...

In recent times coffee has been considered, not as an article of food, but partly as a spice and partly as a kind of medicine. Spice it is, inasmuch as it causes, like many othe...

Since coffee possesses the quality of stimulating the nervous system, it is a matter of course that in many cases its effect is rather injurious. Phlegmatic people, especially,...

Workmen, even those who must perform hard labor, are sufficiently strengthened by coffee and wheat bread in the morning to begin their work. But to be able to continue it, a mor...

Liquor is no article of food; if for a moment it were considered as such, we should find that it is even less nutritious than water with sugar in it. What makes liquor a necessa...

He who accustoms his stomach to secrete gastric juice only after a stimulus effected by spirits, destroys his digestive power. Unhappy man! He is no longer able to digest food,...

The poor workman who has accustomed his stomach to perform digestion only through the excitement of a previous stimulant, cannot, even if he knows the miserable condition he is...

The digestion of the drunkard, as we have seen, is greatly impaired; the process of nutrition entirely changed. There is a change in the tissues of the interior of the body. The...

We wish to speak now of dinner, the principal meal of the day. Here, too, we shall take for standard neither the unhappy poor, who must eat what little he can obtain; nor the op...

The human body is the transformed food which he has eaten. It is quite correct that man can live on bread and water a long time; but man's nature is so varied, his qualities are...

The good tact of woman does even more yet; it selects the dishes in such a manner that they mutually compensate for their wants, that is, that each offers to the body what is wa...

Broth contains gluten and albumen, both of which are changed in the body into flesh. Not only the animal part of our body, but chiefly the active, working part of it requires nu...

The greens which we put in soup cannot be considered nutriment, but rather a kind of spice, and perhaps also as a means of giving us the benefit of some medicinal qualities whic...

In the common kinds of vegetables there is very little nutriment. Nearly nine-tenths of the weight of cabbages and other varieties consist of water. There is therefore but littl...

An old adage says, "After dinner thou shalt either rest or walk a thousand steps." Habit, however, has modified this very much; for people nowadays neither rest nor walk; but, i...

During the forenoon a general desire for food is felt, while in the afternoon thirst is more common, in which case the best and most natural beverage should always be water.

No time of the day is more pleasant than the evening hours after the day's work is over; there is a solemn calm and quiet in them which charms both soul and body.