The Progress of the Century

It is curious to see how little is said about these beautiful bridges, which the public takes as a matter of course. If they had been built fifty years ago, their engineers woul...

At first it was thought that these bacteria existed chiefly in the air, and hence in Lister’s early methods powerful spray-producing apparatus were used; but while it is true th...

This is necessary because the image of the spectrum of a star on the photograph is only a thin line in which it is impossible to see the spectral lines; the spectrum must be bro...

The greatest change in the battle-fields of the future, as compared with those of a few years ago, will be found in the development and increased strength of the artillery. A mo...

The _modus vivendi_ then reached, and soon consecrated by a series of concordats, has remained substantially the basis of the dealings of Catholicism with the governments of the...

This latter celebrated and favorite class of ship stood next in order of power above the corvette, with which it might also be said to have blended; for although in the frigate...

These varied causes of destruction may be seen constantly at work by any one who looks for them. They act from the moment of birth, being more especially destructive to the youn...

The destructiveness of shell from ordinary guns was so obvious, especially for forts to use against wooden ships, that the difficulties were gradually overcome, and horizontal s...

This natural decadence of art in Greece was hastened by the invasion of the barbarous Dorians about 1000 B. C. Art, however, was by no means extinguished, but only repressed by...

This is employed in all dynamical engineering. It covers the designs of prime motors of all sorts, steam, gas, and gasoline reciprocating engines; also steam and water turbines,...

A Catholic layman of the same distinguished family, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, threw in his lot with the patriots from the beginning, and by word and deed served the cause o...

At the same time, the influences which, in one point of view, seemed to limit and narrow human existence, in another point of view tended to liberate and enlarge it. If they exc...

The century opened auspiciously, and those who were awake saw signs of the dawn. The spirit of Science was brooding on the waters. In England the influence of John Hunter stimul...

There can be no doubt that next to the Reform movement the profoundest modification of the forces within Judaism has come about during the last years of the century through the...

Lavoisier’s idea, that oxygen was the necessary constituent of all acids, began about this time to lose ground. For Davy had proved the elementary nature of chlorine; and hydroc...

A third noteworthy feature in modern treatment has been a return to psychical methods of cure, in which _faith in something is suggested_ to the patient. After all, faith is the...

_Influenza, or the Grip._—Caused by one of the smallest-known bacilli; discovered in 1892 by Canon and Pfeiffer. Infection spreads by the scattering about by air-currents of the...

The simplest facts of electro-magnetism, upon which much of the later electrical developments depend, remained entirely unknown until near the close of the first quarter of the...

It is difficult to determine more than approximately the beginning of special movements of thought; for the different nations of the civilized world are not exactly contemporane...

Hampden, Regius Professor of Theology at Oxford, formed another object of High Church attack. He had been condemned by the university on account of doctrines alleged to be anti-...

The century, even if we are in full decadence (of which we are not the best judges), has been glorious in literature, and holds its own well with any in modern history. English...

Recourse has been had to the theory of partial inspiration, admitting historical and even moral errors in Scripture, but setting them down to the human element in the compositio...

He also refers to the numerous large blocks of the primitive rocks scattered over the surface of secondary formations, and separated by deep valleys or even by arms of the sea f...

(4) The nation mediates between humanitarianism and individualism. In serving its own ends and seeking to accomplish its mission, it works for the good of all, and also for the...

With the then existing methods of computation of orbits it was imperative to have numerous measured positions to use as data for the calculation. The scanty data available in th...

_Surgery of the Head and Brain._—In the surgery of the head we find one of the most remarkable illustrations of the modern progress of surgery. Fractures of the skull have been...

Water is the only compound formed; and it is produced by the union of the hydrogen-ion originally belonging to the acid, and the OH or hydroxyl-ion originally belonging to the b...

An electric railway may exemplify a power-transmission system in which power is delivered to moving vehicles. But the distances so covered are not generally more than a few mile...

Count Rumford’s conclusions were not for a long time accepted. Davy, the brilliant professor and eloquent lecturer at the newly established Royal Institution, espoused the mecha...

In Hume, on the other hand, we have the mightiest of all sceptics in the literal sense of the term, inasmuch as he was purely a doubter and seems hardly to have felt the desire...

Waves of light and radiant heat originate in ether disturbances produced by molecular vibration, and have impressed upon them all of the important qualities of that vibration. M...

The advent of the telephone in 1876 seemed to stimulate invention in the electric field to a remarkable degree. Its immediate commercial success probably acted also to inspire c...

The influence of the humanitarian sentiment may be further traced in softening the asperities of some forms of traditional theology, as, for example, the Calvinistic doctrine of...

One of the most remarkable features of modern protective medicine is the widespread interest that has been aroused in the crusade against tuberculosis. What has already been acc...

Doubtless Cooper’s Indians are not “realistically” treated, though there is infinitely more of truth in his dignified hunters and warriors than people conversant only with the R...

At the beginning of the century Egypt was a land of untouched and inexplicable mystery; the hieroglyphics were wondered at, and puzzled over, without any idea of how they were t...

The next year, 1847, witnessed the introduction of chloroform by Sir James Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh. Until I became acquainted with the striking figures just quoted, I had often...

Although the “armed nation” has replaced in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Roumania, and Bulgaria the smaller professional armies of the eighteenth centur...

The first was crystallized in what is now known as the “Science of Judaism”; by which is meant the untrammelled, scientific investigation of the past history of the Jews. The wa...

The economic condition of the Jews in the large Eastern European Ghettos is, naturally, extremely bad. Huddled together, either in certain districts of large towns or in village...

In the Plain Text version of this eBook, molecular structures in the Chemistry chapter will display correctly only when a fixed-width font is used. Other special situations in t...

“Time and space,” a noble philosopher has observed, “are but hallucinations.” It may be so, and from the point of view of the metaphysician ours may have been merely a “so-calle...

It has been pointed out by Judge Stallo, of Philadelphia, in his _Concepts of Physics_, that such a hypothesis as that of Dalton is no explanation; that a fact of nature, as, fo...

The last few years of the century were rendered memorable from the lunar point of view by the publication and minute study of a most admirable series of photographs of the moon...

Such is the position in which at the close of the last century Christendom seems to have stood. Outside the pale of reason—of reason; we do not say of truth—were the Roman Catho...