Secrets of Earth and Sea

In Figs. 1 and 2 on the next page a cylindrical piece of the antler of a red deer is represented of half the natural size. On it are carved by in-sunk lines certain representati...

At intervals of ten to twenty years the best-known volcano in the world–Vesuvius, on the Bay of Naples–has in the last two centuries burst into eruption, and the probability of...

We have seen that there is no simple rule as to the "mating" of individuals of a species with individuals of another closely allied but distinct species. Such mating very rarely...

From mediæval times onward a serious constitutional disease–a morbid condition of the blood and tissues–has been known by the name "scurvy," and the word "scorbutic" has been co...

The works of art produced by the cave-men are, as we have already seen, of five kinds or classes–(1) All-round small statuettes, or "high-relief" carvings, in ivory, bone, or st...

An interesting case, showing that qualities which are life-preserving under certain severe conditions exist in some varieties of a species and not in others, was recorded some e...

Most people know and admire the splendid expanse of blue colour offered by the clear sea water on many parts of our coasts, and by that of lakes at home and abroad. I find that...

A series of important conceptions are implied in the word "species," as used by naturalists. Some of these we have noted in the last chapter. There is first, as a starting-point...

I gave some account in the last chapter of the experiments made within the last twenty years, which have shown that, in certain very simple organisms and in seeds, all chemical...

Our leading newspapers, with rare exceptions, never report the discoveries announced at our scientific societies. But they often seek to astonish their readers with silly storie...

Those who take an interest in natural history must find it necessary to know what the naturalist means by "a species" of animal or plant. What does he mean when he says: "This i...

The subject treated in this and the next chapter is one of the most interesting to mankind, and is surrounded by extraordinary prejudice, sentiment, and ignorance. It is one upo...

I wrote in the last chapter of the recognition of that degree of "likeness" or kinship in animals and plants which we point to by the word "species," and of the grouping of seve...

The Swastika is, we have seen, a very early device or symbol in use among ancient races in Europe, Asia and America. Though it has been found on an ingot of metal in Ashanti it...

Microscopic as the wheel animalcules are they yet have been watched and examined by their admirers to as great a point of intimacy as that reached by the devotees of insects or...

There is a prevalent notion, encouraged by the fanciful exaggerations of newspaper gossips, that the animals of past ages, whose bones are from time to time dug out of rocks and...

Fig. 54 represents a remarkable design which is a sort of national emblem, a universally accepted badge of triumph and honour in Japan, and is called "Tomoye"–meaning "triumph."...

Some fifty-five years ago pieces of reindeer's antler were discovered in the cave known as "La Madeleine" in the Dordogne (a department of France some eighty miles east of Borde...

A good many people have never heard of the Swastika. It is an emblem or device such as is the Cross or the Crescent. Here it is (Fig. 38) in its most simple and most common form...

Two hundred years ago the Dutch naturalist Leuwenhoek, who made many discoveries with the highly magnifying lenses which he himself ground and mounted, wrote to the Royal Societ...

Coal is so much "a matter of course" in our daily life that most people are only now, when its supply is becoming precarious, anxious to know something of its nature and history...

Closely similar to coal in chemical matter–that is to say, consisting chiefly of definite chemical compounds, called hydrocarbons, built up of only two elements, carbon and hydr...