Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

I may premise that Cambridge has an important advantage over Oxford in the fact that she has a far larger number of men to choose from in selecting a university crew. It may see...

In some respects the discovery of a planet nearer to the sun than Mercury may seem to many far inferior in interest to the detection of the remote giant Neptune. Between Mercury...

The moon, commonly regarded as a mere satellite of the earth, is in truth a planet, the least member of that family of five bodies circling within the asteroidal zone, to which...

Whether it is likely that there will be a display of meteors to-night (or, rather, to-morrow morning), is a question to which most astronomers would be disposed, we believe, to...

It is easy, as Huxley remarks, to understand why, whereas Gratio Kelleia did not become the ancestor of a race of six-figured and six-toed men, Seth Wright's Ancon ram became a...

The account given by Don Antonio d'Ulloa of the appearance presented by the corona during the total eclipse of 1778, is rendered doubtful by his reference to an apparent rotator...

Although, perhaps, at present, the public are disposed to consider the University race from a sporting rather than from a scientific point of view, yet it has long been admitted...

While the lightning flash shows the brilliancy which the electric illumination can attain, it shows also the intense heat resulting from the electric discharge. This might, inde...

Somewhat akin to the unconscious recurrence of mental processes after considerable intervals of time is the tendency to imitate the actions of others as though sharing in their...

So far the illustration corresponds well with what had been done during a quarter of a century or so before the last transit of Venus. Several different methods of determining t...

It will be well, however, to inquire somewhat carefully into this point. My present object, I would note, is not merely to indicate the remarkable nature of the phenomena of hyp...

[Footnote 20: Since the above was written I have noticed a passage in Dr. Carpenter's _Mental Physiology_, p. 719, bearing on the matter I have been dealing with:--'The followin...

There is little in this interesting narrative to suggest that the duality of consciousness in this case was in any way dependent on the duality of the brain. During the patient'...

White's account of this severe frost bears very significantly on the theory that our winter weather has undergone a great change. It is obvious, in the first place, that the sit...

Therefore, although Leverrier, Moigno, Hind, and other men of science, have adopted Lescarbault's account, I hold it to be absolutely certain that that account is in some respec...

It is scarcely necessary for me to explain the plan of the present work, because I have already--in introducing my 'Light Science for Leisure Hours,' my 'Science Byways,' and my...

I believe it will be found on careful inquiry that the change for which forty years ago men sought a cause in vain, and for which at present they assign a perfectly inadequate c...

Not unfrequently we hear the measurement of the sun's distance, and the various errors which astronomers have had to correct during the progress of their efforts to deal with th...

What are these mysterious ray systems? How are we to explain the circumstance that though only the most tremendous forces seem competent to account for bands such as these, many...

On the other hand, the case of Sergeant F. (a few of the circumstances of which were mentioned in my essay entitled 'Have we two Brains?'), seems to correspond with Dr. Holland'...

Now, the difficulty of the problem will be recognised when we remember that the strongest tints of the corona's light--the green tint classified as 1474 Kirchhoff--has been spec...

It seems to me that it is necessary to adopt some such theory as to the former existence of lunar oceans in order to explain some of the appearances presented by the so-called l...

In endeavouring to form an opinion on the law of heredity in its relation to genius, we must remember that a remark somewhat similar to one made by Huxley respecting the origin...

We may regard the phenomena of hypnotism in two aspects--first and chiefly as illustrating the influence of imagination on the functions of the body; secondly, as showing under...

In some respects, the increase of muscular power, or rather of the power of special muscles, is even more striking, because it is commonly supposed by most persons that the musc...

We have now to consider how light suitable for purposes of illumination may be obtained from the electric current. Hitherto we have considered only light such as might be used f...

Let us make a simple illustration. Suppose a person standing on the edge of a sheet of water seeks to propel across the sheet a heavy log lying near the bank. If he gives the lo...

We may begin by citing a case which seems exceedingly significant. Miss H. Martineau relates that a congenital idiot, who had lost his mother when he was less than two years old...