The Child's Book of Nature Three parts in one

When a boy throws a ball up into the air, he thinks that it comes down of itself. He thinks that it comes down merely because the force with which he sent it up is spent or lost...

The mind, as you learned in the last chapter, has a sort of telegraphic communication with all parts of the body by means of the nerves, and it is all the time receiving message...

If I should ask you why things in the air fall to the ground, you would probably say it is because it is downward, and every thing must come down that is not held up in some way...

Heat always tries to spread itself in all directions. If you put the end of a poker in the fire and hold it there, you do something more than heat that end. You heat the whole o...

Animals have various instruments for defending themselves. Some have claws, some horns, some hoofs, some spurs and beaks, some powerful teeth, and some stings. These they use to...

You can jump off from the ground just a little way into the air, but you can not fly into it, as the birds do. It is because you have no wings. But how is it that the birds fly...

When you see the lightning in a thunder-storm, you would think it strange if I should tell you that there is lightning in every thing; but so it is, as you will see. Did you eve...

Birds walk upon two legs as we do; but, instead of such hands as we have, they have hands made for the purpose of lifting them up in the air. The bones in a bird’s wing are very...

If you look at water in a bowl, you see that its surface is smooth and level. If now you stir it about, you make it uneven. Watch it as it becomes still and smooth again. There...

Insects have various tools or instruments. There is a fly called the saw-fly, because it really has a saw. It is a very nice one, much nicer than any saw that man ever made. The...

You hear people sometimes say of a chimney that it _draws_ well, as if the smoke were in some way drawn up the chimney. This is not so. It is pushed up. Smoke is mostly heated a...

What is sound? If you look at a large bell when it is struck, you can see a quivering or shaking in it. If you put your hand on it, you can feel the quivering. It is this that m...

Every body likes flowers. We like them wherever we see them. How pleasant they are to our eyes as we see them in the garden! How their various colors please us as we look along...

You see that the color of a thing is not a part of the thing itself. It is something which the thing throws off or lets pass through it. The color of a thing depends upon what a...

I have told you some things in the previous chapters about how the body is built and kept in repair. I have told you that the blood is the building material from which all the p...

All animals have their times for sleeping. It would not do for their minds to use the machinery of the body all the time; if they did, the machinery would soon wear out. The bra...

Though animals do not have hands, they have different parts which they use to do some of the same things that we do with our hands. I will tell you about some of these in this c...

Steam is like air in three things. It is very thin; it is very elastic, or has a great deal of springiness; and you can not see it. Now perhaps you will say that this last is no...

Man is the only animal that makes tools to use. God has given him a mind that can contrive tools, and he has also given him hands by which he can use them. But he has given no s...

You saw by what I told you in the latter part of the last chapter that the great difference between a solid and a fluid is that the particles of a solid are fastened tightly tog...

Here is a balloon which was contrived in 1670, two hundred years ago, by a man whose name was Lana. You would suppose, from the picture of it, that it would go very well with it...

Powder is a very harmless thing of itself. You can take it into your hand and it will not hurt you; but touch it with fire, and it flashes and explodes; and if there is much of...

I have told you that most of what the mind knows about the world around it comes to it by the sight and the hearing. But it learns a great deal by the other senses, and these I...

As I told you about heat, that we do not know what it is, so, also, we do not know what light is. But we know many things about light, just as we do about heat.

The eye, you know, is a very tender organ. It is therefore guarded thoroughly, and it is really very seldom hurt. But notice that it is just where it would be likely to be hurt...

You see, from what I have told you, that man can do with his hands a great variety of things that animals can not do. It has been said, therefore, by some that the hand is the g...

I have already told you in Chapter XIII. how heat expands air. You remember the two experiments with the bladder before the fire. You remember also what I told you about the exp...

Man is the only animal that has a hand. The monkey has something like a hand; but, if you watch him as he takes things, you will see that it is a very awkward and bungling thing...

You know that you can suck up water or any fluid through a straw or any other tube. Now what is it that makes the water go up through the tube into your mouth? I will tell you....

Any thing that is solid presses only one way, directly down; but water or any fluid presses all ways. It presses just as much sidewise, or even upward, as it does down. The reas...

Flowers are of all kinds of shapes. The shape of the flower often gives it its name. Some are shaped like stars, and are called asters, the word in Latin for stars. There are ma...

The senses by which the mind obtains most of its knowledge are the sight and the hearing. In this chapter we will look at the organ or instrument of sight.

The air is every where. It is always ready to go where there is room made for it. If we move a bureau or any thing out of a room, the air fills up all the place where it stood....

As animals think, they learn. Some learn more than others. The dog learns a good deal; so do the monkey and the elephant. Some are good at learning some particular things. The p...

A great many interesting experiments about the pressure of the air can be tried with the air-pump, which you see represented here. This I will describe, so that you may understa...

There is a great number of muscles in the whole body to produce all its motions. There are about fifty in each arm and hand. In the whole body there are about four hundred and f...

How different snow is from water! How white it is as it lies upon the earth like a winding-sheet, covering up the dead leaves and plants! How the wind that makes waves in the wa...

You have seen what a variety of curious machinery there is in our bodies for our minds to work, besides that which is needed to keep the body in repair. But I have told you some...

I have already told you some things about the muscles. There is no motion in the body that is not made by them. They move the bones, and they move other parts also, as the tongu...

Leaves are such common things that we do not think how beautiful they are. But take any common leaf into your hand and look at it. Take the leaf of the strawberry. See how prett...

What is it that makes a balloon go up in the air? It is because it is so light, you will say; but what it is made of is not as light as air is. It will not, you know, fly off in...

Here are the bones of the arm and the hand. The head of the arm bone that goes into the socket at the shoulder is, as you see, a smooth round ball. It fits into a sort of cup. T...

I have told you about the air which we breathe, and which is all around us; but there are other kinds of air. When we light the gas, what is it that we set on fire? It is an air...

I have told you how water is in motion whenever it can be. It runs whenever it can get a chance to do it; but it is in motion in another way, which I will now tell you about.

You know that the cork does not fly out till the rod is pushed a considerable way down into the tube or barrel of the gun, and then it flies out all at once with a popping noise...

We do not know what heat is. Wise men have tried to find out what it is, but they have never been able to do it. But we know some things that heat comes from, and some things th...

I have told you about the ribs of leaves. Let us see what makes them so firm and strong. Look at a large grape-leaf on the vine. It spreads out very firmly. If the wind blows it...

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern...

Electricity passes through some things more easily than it does through others. Those that it passes through easily are said to be good conductors of electricity. There are some...

There is great variety in the coverings of insects. In some the covering is like burnished armor. The variety of colors is exceedingly great, and in many they have a splendid br...

What a beautiful thing is water! How pure and clear, like a crystal! How “sparkling and bright it is,” as you see its ripples in the sun! How we admire it, as it is gathered in...

When one is walking on ice, he finds that he must be careful, and he gets along slowly. The reason is that there is not enough rubbing or friction between his feet and the ice....

You remember that I told you in Part First how the sap circulates in a plant or a tree. It goes up in one set of pipes, and goes down in another set. Just so it is with the bloo...

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern...

The food of plants is in the ground, and the roots take it up; but so, too, is the food of animals in the ground. And yet, if we should fill our stomachs ever so full of earth,...

You see water in the air in another shape besides fog. You see it in the clouds. A cloud is really fog, but it is high up in the air, while what we commonly call fog is near the...

Balloons are sometimes, as I have told you, filled with heated air. This heated air is lighter than the cool air around it, and so the balloon rises, or, rather, is pushed up. N...

The root, besides being a sort of stomach to the plant, is its support. The plant is fastened by it firmly in the ground. For this reason a large tree has a large and deep root....

What do you breathe for? That is plain enough, you will say: I can not live without breathing. But why is it that your life depends on your breathing? This I will explain to you.

The skin of man is his covering. It covers up like a case all the machinery that I have told you is in his body--the bones, the muscles, the nerves, the arteries, the veins, etc...

I have thus, in the Three Parts of this book, described to you some of the wonderful things that are all around you upon the earth and in the water. But there are many more thin...

In some parts of the world a kind of iron ore is found which is called loadstone. It has a peculiar power. It attracts iron very strongly. Hold it close to some iron filings, an...

I have told you how your mind learns about the world around you, and how it makes use of its knowledge by means of the machinery of your body--the muscles, bones, etc. Your mind...

In telling you about fruits I told you also something about seeds. In this chapter I shall tell you more about them. Plants commonly come up from seeds. It is very curious to se...

The light that comes from the sun is, you know, a white light. Now in this white light are the different colors of the rainbow. Indeed, it is these colors mixed together that ma...

I have told you, in the last few chapters, how it is that the mind learns about the world around it by the senses. But the mind does something besides learn. It tells others abo...

Leaves come from buds just as flowers do. If you look at the buds in the spring on a tree you see that they are beginning to swell. They grow larger and larger, like the buds th...

You saw in the last chapter that the great superiority of man over other animals is in his mind. Let us look, now, at those things in which their minds are like his, and those t...

Notice that in the mill in your mouth there are different kinds of teeth. They are for different purposes. The front teeth are for cutting the food; the large back teeth are for...

The air, when it is in motion, does a great deal of work for us. It pushes along the ships in the water. Perhaps you think that it hardly sounds right to say that the air pushes...

Water can be raised in a pump only to a certain height, and the mistake has sometimes been made of getting the pump so long that it would not work. If it be more than about thir...

We speak of plants as having stalks, and of trees as having trunks. A tree has a stout firm trunk, because its top is so large and heavy. Its branches spread out so much, that t...

You will want to know from what all the fruits are made. They are made from the sap, just as the flower is. After the flower has fallen the sap keeps coming along the pipes in t...

I have told you that the sap goes up in a plant or a tree in certain pipes. Now when it gets to the leaves it turns about and goes back again down toward the ground by some othe...

One use of leaves, as I told you in the last chapter, is to supply the air with water. In the hot weather the air would be very dry and uncomfortable to us if the leaves did not...

How different from each other are some of the things that are made from the blood! You could hardly believe that the white, hard teeth are made from the same blood that the red,...

We speak of a room having no furniture in it as being empty; but this is not exactly so. There is one thing that it is full of up to its very top. It is a thing that you can not...

In the autumn in cold climates the leaves fall. This is the reason that the autumn is called the fall of the year. There are some trees that have leaves on them all the time. Th...

So I have told you in this book many things about trees and plants. And I suppose that you will look at them with more pleasure now than you did before you knew so much about th...

When a seed sprouts, the root, I have told you, goes down into the ground, while the stalk goes upward into the air. The root goes down because the food of the plant is in the g...

The little mouths in the stomach, as I have told you, suck up from the food what is made into blood, but they do not do this as soon as the food is put into the stomach. The foo...

Most trees and bushes are stripped of all their leaves in the autumn, and remain bare till the winter is passed. We should feel sad if they were without leaves all the year roun...

Every thing that you see in a tree or a plant is made from the sap. The bark, the wood, the leaves, the flowers, the fruit, are all made from it. Even the root that sucks up the...

There is another thing in the flower besides the color that is made from the sap. It is its perfume. How delightful this is in the rose! And how long it lasts! But you can smell...

I have told you, in Part First, how every thing in a plant or tree is made from the sap. This is, then, the building material, as we may say, of the plant. Now every thing in yo...

I have told you about red roses. But all roses, you know, are not red. There are white and yellow roses. And some roses are a very light red, while others are a dark red. Now, h...

All flowers naturally turn toward the light, as if they loved it. You can see this if you watch plants that are standing near a window. The flowers will all be bent toward the l...

If you love flowers you will like to know all that you can about them. It is just as it is when you love a person. You want to know all that you can about the friends that you l...

Flowers are often mentioned in the Bible. Man is said to be like a flower, because as he dies and is buried in the earth, so the flower fades and withers, and falls to the groun...

It is from our love of flowers that a bouquet is always a pretty present to a friend. The kind teacher is much gratified when a scholar, with a bright, cheerful “Good morning,”...

Flowers are made chiefly for us to look at. It is to gratify our eyes, as I have before told you, that the Creator has made them so beautiful, and has given to them such a varie...

You have eaten maple-sugar. This comes from a tree called the sugar-maple. The sugar is in the sap, just as it is in the case of the sugar-cane. The sap is obtained early in the...

The humming-bird also lives on the flowers. This little creature seems always to be on the wing when he is not in his nest. He is seldom seen sitting on a branch like other bird...

When a flower wilts and falls, there is something left on the end of the flower-stem. It is this that holds the seeds. You can see this in the rose. When the beautiful leaves of...

You have often seen the flowers of the morning-glory. These last only from early in the morning to noon, or a little after noon. In the afternoon they are all closed, and the vi...

Some seeds are carried away by water. Sometimes they sail a very great distance in this way, and, like people, settle down far away from the spot where they grew.

The blood in your body is made from the food that you eat. It is made very much in the same way that the sap in the plant is made. This sounds strange to you, but it is true. Yo...

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern...

Some plants always die in the fall. Corn dies; so does the bean-vine. And so do many other plants. In order to have such plants another year, we keep some of their seeds to put...

A dry seed looks as if it were dead. But there is life there, shut up in that prison-house. It is very quiet as long as it is shut up. But once let it out, and it does great thi...

Perhaps it seemed strange to you when I said in the last chapter that bark makes wood. But so it is. Every year the living inner bark goes to work and makes a layer of wood out...

The bark is not all one thing. It is made up of two parts; or rather, we should say, there are two barks. There is an outer bark and an inner one. The outer bark has no life in...

You remember that I mentioned to you the brown scales on the buds of the horse-chestnut. I will tell you what these scales are for: they cover up the tender bud from the cold of...

Air is as necessary to the life of plants as it is to the life of animals. In animals the air is used by lungs, but in plants it is used by the leaves. This I have told you abou...

THE CHILD’S BOOK OF NATURE. For the Use of Families and Schools; intended to aid Mothers and Teachers in training Children in the Observation of Nature. In three Parts. Illustra...

THE CHILD’S BOOK OF NATURE. For the Use of Families and Schools; intended to aid Mothers and Teachers in training Children in the Observation of Nature. In three Parts. Illustra...

THE CHILD’S BOOK OF NATURE. For the Use of Families and Schools; intended to aid Mothers and Teachers in training Children in the Observation of Nature. In three Parts. Illustra...