Public-domain ebook
by Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
Language: en6,052 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Essays, Letters & Speeches·Nature/Gardening/Animals
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #27015.
The work is a 1920 re‑issue of Sir E. Ray Lankester’s popular science essays, originally printed in the Daily Telegraph and later collected as “Science from an Easy Chair, Second Series.” It gathers a varied set of revised articles, each illustrated with numerous drawings, and trims the original volume by omitting chapters on glaciers, ferns, and sea‑squirts. The opening chapter places the reader in early September at Interlaken, where Lankester describes the bright Alpine landscape, the flow of the Lütschine rivers, and the behaviour of trout in icy torrents, before moving on to a detailed observation of how bees pollinate the yellow sage. The book proceeds through a menu of topics ranging from the anatomy of elephants to the chemistry of smells, all presented as short, self‑contained papers.
Lankester writes in a conversational yet erudite tone, blending travel narrative with natural‑history explanation, typical of early‑20th‑century popular science. His prose is rich in observation, occasional humor, and a penchant for linking disparate phenomena, making the text feel like a series of leisurely lectures delivered from a comfortable chair. Readers who enjoy eclectic, well‑illustrated essays that combine field notes, historical anecdotes, and scientific insight, especially those with an interest in Victorian‑era natural history and the spirit of inquiry that marked the period, will find this collection rewarding.
The opening · free to read
The present volume is a reprint of that issued in 1912 with the title, "Science from an Easy Chair: Second Series." It consists, like its predecessors, of chapters originally published by me in the Daily Telegraph, which I have revised and illustrated by a large number of drawings. In order to render the issue of the present cheap edition possible, it has been found necessary to restrict its size a little by the omission of chapters dealing with Glaciers, Ferns and Fern-seed, and the history of the Sea-squirts or Ascidians, which are contained in the original larger book. My hope is that this collection of papers, "about a number of things," may meet with as kind a reception from my readers as that which they have accorded to its predecessors.
Fertilization of Sage--The Edelweiss--The Jungfrau's Breast--Contortions of Rock-strata--The Jungfrau Railway--Mountain Sickness.
The Cinematograph--Ancient Representations of Gallop--The Dog in Mycenaean Art--What ought an Artist to do?--Attention as a Condition of Seeing--Judgment and Prejudice--Natural and Artificial Paces--Photographs by Electric Spark--Use of Instantaneous Photographs--Errors as to the Size of the Moon--The Painter and the Moon--The Moon on the Stage.
The Decay of Credulity--A Sceptical Physician--How to Test a Toadstone--Other Magical Stones--Medicinal and Magical Stones.
The Indian and the African Elephant--Size of Modern Elephants--Ears and Teeth of Elephants--Earliest Elephants brought to Europe--The Elephant's Legs--Tusks used in Digging--Elephants used in War--Geological Strata since the Chalk--Ancestral Mammals--The Typical or Ancestral Set of Teeth--The Peculiarities of the Teeth of Elephants--Extinct Relatives of Elephants--Ancestors of Elephants--Origin of the Elephant's Trunk.
Fossil Skeletons and Jaw-bones--The Skull and Teeth of Goats--The Teeth of Rats--The Rat-toothed Goat--Origin of the Rat-toothed Goat.
Special Diet of Various Races--Food and Habit--Nervous Control of Digestion--Wholesale Food and Mechanical Cookery--The Burnt Offering of the Jews--Women Neglect Cookery--A Great German's Appreciation.
Kissing and Smelling--Variations in the Sense of Smell--Radiation and Odours--Attraction by Smell--Unconscious Guidance by Smell.
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