The book of wonders

Words, letters and phrases printed in boldface or italics in the source document have been transcribed between =equal signs= and _underscores_ respectively. Small capitals have...

When the young animal was anxious to accept the offered food, it made an effort to get at the food quickly. Hence, the pushing forward of the head and the open mouth (always mor...

In the next trial, several months later, Captain Behr arranged to have the electrical connections made or broken by the movement of the gun-carriage itself in recoiling; but the...

We do not know the name of the man who invented the sling. Possibly he did not even have a name, but in some way he hit upon a scheme for throwing stones farther, harder, and st...

The “powder chamber” is the rear part of the bore, and extends from the face of the breech plug when closed to the point where the “rifling” begins. The powder chamber is slight...

Very often this air which is suddenly forced back by the power of the explosion is thrown against houses at a distance. These houses may be so strongly built as to be able to wi...

“On the afternoon of June 2, 1875, we were hard at work on the same old job, testing some modification of the instruments. Things were badly out of tune that afternoon in that h...

Early records reveal that shortly after the year 1600 many of the colonies passed laws for the purpose of encouraging the sheep industry. In fact, some of them went so far as to...

We cannot see in the dark because there is no light to see by. To understand this we must first understand that when we see a thing, as we generally say, we do not actually see...

Roads are made with a curving upper surface, i. e., higher in the middle, in order that the rain will drain away from the road into the gutters or ditches which you find at the...

Bubbles are round because the air which forms the inside of the bubble exerts an equal pressure in all directions. It presses equally against all sides of the bubble at the same...

A transferring machine combines two or three of these strands; two for sewing silk and three for machine twist; and the bobbin next goes on to the “twisting machine”--a machine...

The connection between Dr. Langley’s work and present machines is now very easy to trace, though not obvious until 1911, when the Smithsonian Institution published memoirs writt...

This occurs simply because lightning or light travels so much more quickly than sound. Light travels at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, and sound travels only at the rate...

After being floated in from the sheds the beets are elevated from the flume to a washer, where they are given an additional washing before being sliced. From the washer they are...

Leaves are of different shapes because they belong to different families of plants or trees. They are a good deal like people in this respect. Hardly two people in the world loo...

The most valuable Persian rugs come from Kurdistan, Khurasan, Peraghan and Karman. The most highly prized come from Kurdistan. The pattern does not show a uniform ground of flow...

The next step in the study of the reproduction of life brings us to the animal kingdom. The first thing we discover in this section is that in the animal kingdom father and moth...

Under ordinary conditions the heart beats are controlled by certain nerve cells which are located within the heart itself, and these cause the heart to beat even while the brain...

The original ring of ripples is caused by the fact that when you drop a stone into the water it disturbs the water where it goes in and the water moves away from the stone to th...

Millions of dollars’ worth of property has been recovered from the ocean’s depth by divers. One of the greatest achievements in this line was by the famous English diver, Lamber...

The diagram, Fig. 1, shows more clearly what is meant. From an inspection of Figure 1 it is clear that, when the openings in the shield bulkhead are closed, the tunnel is protec...

The name Fahrenheit is used to distinguish the kind of scale most commonly used on thermometers in Great Britain and the United States. Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, a native of Da...

Whenever the ether is made to vibrate rapidly enough at any point, the vibrations go in straight lines from the source of light in all directions. A single line of vibrating par...

Ivory is a hard substance, not unlike bone, of which the teeth of most mammals chiefly consist, the dentine or tooth-substance which in transverse sections shows lines of differ...

When a lobster is taken out of the lobster trap with which the fisherman traps him, he is green, but when he comes to the table as a choice morsel of food his shell is red. We k...

No, the sky can never fall down, because it is not made of the kind of things that fall. We have become used to thinking of it as the roof of the earth, a great dome-shaped roof...

The process by which pig-iron is changed into wrought-iron is called _puddling_. The object of puddling, which is done in what is called a reverberatory furnace (which is a furn...

As long as the submarine has but a single eye it would seem quite essential to make this eye all-seeing; and since the two lamentable accidents just referred to, an inventor in...

The operating tube is here shown within the body of a hulk and co-operating with the lifting derrick on the surface craft in the removal of the submerged cargo. A grab-dredge bu...

At the very start of operations a man feeds blocks of wood into the jaws of the machine, and thenceforth the mechanical monster does its own work. Seizing the block from the man...

In addition to coal gas made in the way just described, there is another form of illuminating gas, in the manufacture of which coal is indirectly employed. This gas, known as wa...

There are over five hundred muscles in the body all of which should be exercised daily to keep you in the best condition. The average adult human heart weighs from eight to twel...

The bed of this clock is 4 feet in length, the wheels and gears being made of bronze and pinions of hardened steel. The time train occupies about one-third of the bedplate, and...

You have already learned that substances charged with opposite kinds of electricity attract each other, and substances charged with the same kind repel each other. We will try t...

This view will give some idea of the interior arrangement of the huge White Star Line triple-screw steamer “Britannic.” Many features undreamed of a dozen years ago have been in...

Ancient civilized peoples had their ropes and cordage, made from such materials as were available in their respective countries. The Egyptians are said to have made rope from le...

Dreams originate in the brain. The brain has many parts and some parts of it may be asleep while others are not. If all parts of the brain are actually asleep, it is said there...

No corner of the world is so far remote but the motion-picture man finds his way there, either as an exhibitor or as a producer. Nothing happens in the world to-day but the moti...

Crude rubber is a vegetable product gathered from certain species of trees, shrubs, vines and roots. Its characteristic peculiarities were early recognized by the natives of the...

We must now consider the impurities found in air. Of these the most important is carbonic acid gas, or, as it is frequently called, carbon dioxide. It is always produced when wo...

When the clay is sufficiently dry, the plate is taken from its mold, the edge smoothed and rounded, and any minor defects remedied. It is then placed in an oval shaped clay rece...

Here we see the fast riders of the Pony Telegraph, which increased the speed of delivering messages quite a good deal, but, of course, there was danger of losing the message to...

On this page we see some of the first telegraph instruments, in fact, the very instruments which Professor Morse used in the early demonstrations of his invention. These instrum...

If a chip be floating on the water it will be rocked by each ripple, just as a wireless receiving station will respond to the electrical waves or impulses that make up a wireles...

The skins of animals were long used by savage tribes as money. The skins were valuable in trading and a man’s fortune was reckoned by the number of skins he owned. As soon as th...

Fig. 1 shows the shape in which the cedar slats arrive at the factory. These slats after grading are boiled in steam to remove what remaining sap there may be in the wood. The s...

The next step was the psaltery, which was produced in the Middle Ages. It was a box with strings stretched across it and represented the first crude attempt at using a sounding...

When a string is plucked in the middle, it vibrates as a whole, and its rate of vibration, or vibration frequency, is determined by the three conditions that have just been disc...

When the shell has been completely cleaned out by means of the blast of compressed air, the exposed rock can be examined by lowering an electric light. Steel sounding rods are e...

Ammonia, or hartshorn, as it is sometimes called, from the fact that it was formerly obtained by distilling the horns of harts, or deer, is almost always present in the air in s...

As the young plants spring up and begin to grow, they are thinned out, watered and cared for until along in October or November, and as soon as the weather becomes settled for t...

Impressions to be so taken that the flexure of the last joint shall be immediately above the black line marked (Fold). If the impression of any digit be defective a second print...

The first foot covering devised was undoubtedly a simple form of sandal--a rough bit of hide, wood or plaited grass held to the foot by means of thongs, generally brought up bet...

The counters are also prepared in this room, as well as the toe boxes or stiffening, which is placed between the toe cap and the vamp of the shoe. When these are all completed,...

A good deal of water is needed in making paper. From twelve to fifteen million gallons daily are drawn from the river and filtered through this plant in Maine; clean paper of br...

=Automobile= (illus.), axle, location of, 186 beginning of, 183 carburetor, location of, 184 carburetor, use of, 184 chassis, complete, 188 cog-wheels, use of, 183 cog-wheels, l...

=Gun=, action at muzzle, 27 annealing a gun ingot, 57 assembling of, 48-54 arquebus of, 1537, 47 barrels, erosion of, 35 blow-holes, 56 bore searcher, 59 breech of a, 53 dischar...

=Rope=, breaker (illus.), 360 compound laying machine (illus.), 361 cross-section, 362 draw frame (illus.), 360 drying fiber, 354 Egyptian kitchen (illus.), 354 Egyptians making...

=What= does the air weigh? 398 animal can leap the greatest distance? 122 causes an arrow to fly? 408 makes some people bald? 143 keeps a balloon up? 199 makes a ball stop bounc...

Page 493: The chemical name for salt is sodium which is derived ... changed to The chemical name for salt is sodium chloride which is derived ...; ... substances around us are c...