The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told

In addition to this the earth revolves round the sun at a speed of more than a thousand miles a minute. Its path round the sun, year in year out, measures about 580,000,000 mile...

But there are many things that point to absence of air on the moon. Even the photographs we reproduce tell the same story. The edges of the shadows are all hard and black. If th...

Lord Avebury's dog Van was accustomed to go to a box containing a small number of printed cards and select the card TEA or OUT, as the occasion suggested. It had established an...

It is impossible, we must admit, to fix dates, except in a few cases, relatively recent; but there is a smack of modernity in some striking devices which we can observe in opera...

Besides the permanent inhabitants of the open sea, there are the larval stages of many shore-animals which are there only for a short time. For there is an interesting give and...

So it has come about that the picture of a hot gaseous nebula revolving as a unit body has given place to other pictures. Thus Sir Norman Lockyer pointed out (1890) that the ear...

Take an ordinary flower-vase well dried and energetically rub it with a silk handkerchief. The vase which thus becomes electrified will attract any light body, such as a feather...

Now, other kinds of light besides sunlight can be analysed. Light from any substance which has been made incandescent may be observed with the spectroscope in the same way, and...

We know very little in regard to sense of smell or taste in amphibians; but the sense of hearing is well developed, more developed than might be inferred from the indifference t...

It must be noticed that there are two serious errors in the careless statement often made that man in his development is at one time like a little fish, at a later stage like a...

We cannot leave the last period of the Palæozoic era and its prolonged ice age without noticing that it meant the entire cessation of a large number of ancient types, especially...

Certain sensory nerve-cells in the earthworm's skin are stimulated by vibrations in the earth; the message travels down a sensory nerve-fibre from each of the stimulated cells a...

In mammals like otters, foxes, stoats, hares, and elephants, what a complex of tides and currents there must be in the brain-mind! We may think of a stream with currents at diff...

Beyond the waves of violet light are the still shorter and more rapid waves--the "ultra-violet" waves--which are precious to the photographer. As every amateur knows, his plate...

A diagram, constructed from actual observations, showing the erratic paths pursued by very fine particles suspended in a liquid, when bombarded by the molecules of the liquid. T...

Now what happened in this kingdom of Caledonia which Neolithic Man had found? He began to introduce domesticated animals, and that meant a thinning of the ranks of predacious cr...

It sometimes happens that in one and the same place there are two groups of animals not very nearly related which are "doubles" of one another. Investigation shows that the memb...

In short, a series of the most remarkable and beautiful experiments, checked in all the great laboratories of the world, settled the nature of these so-called rays. They were st...

For every animal one discovers when observing carefully, there must be ten unseen. This is partly because many animals burrow in the ground or get in underneath things and into...

There is also _anatomical_ evidence of a most convincing quality. In the fore-limbs of backboned animals, say, the paddle of a turtle, the wing of a bird, the flipper of a whale...

As to FOLK, human progress depends on intrinsic racial qualities--notably health and vigour of body, clearness and alertness of mind, and an indispensable sociality. The most po...

How do we know when the various classes of animals and plants were established on the earth? How do we know the order of their appearance and the succession of their advances? T...

THE DINGO OR WILD DOG OF AUSTRALIA, PERHAPS AN INDIGENOUS WILD SPECIES, PERHAPS A DOMESTICATED DOG THAT HAS GONE WILD OR FERAL 216 Photo: W. S. Berridge, F.Z.S.

Our system, in fact, is shaped something like a lens, and our sun is situated near the centre of this lens. In the remoter part of this lens, near its edge, or possibly outside...

There is neither agreement nor certainty as to the antiquity of man, except that the modern type was distinguishable from its collaterals hundreds of thousands of years ago. The...

_First Printing April, 1922 Second Printing April, 1922 Third Printing April, 1922 Fourth Printing April, 1922 Fifth Printing June, 1922 Sixth Printing June, 1922 Seventh Printi...

Splitting into two or many parts was the old-fashioned way of multiplying, but one of the great steps in evolution was the discovery of a better method, namely, sexual reproduct...

It would be beyond our scope to attempt to explain the complete theory, but we may mention one obvious factor which must be taken into account. Since the moon, by its gravitatio...