The Outline of Science: A Plain Story Simply Told, Volume 3John Arthur Thomson G. P. Putnam, 1922 - 299 pages |
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The Outline of Science: A Plain Story Simply Told; Volume 3 John Arthur Thomson No preview available - 2018 |
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acid aerial aeroplane airship animals atoms balloons become beetle body called carbon carried cells changes chemical chemical elements chemist Chemistry circuit clairvoyance cloud clover coil colour compounds conductor connected control lever direction earth eggs electric current electrified electrons elements energy engine F. R. Hinkins fact feet fertilised flowering plants flowers flying growth heat Henri Manuel hydrogen illustration important insect instance J. J. Ward James's Press Agency kind larvæ leaf leaves Leyden jar light lines of force living creatures living matter machine magnetic miles molecules motors movement nature NEWT nitrogen organs oscillations oxygen parasites passengers Photo pilot pollen pressure produced Psychical Railway Reproduced by permission root round salts seeds shows SMOOTH NEWT soil species speed stamens stations steam substance sundew surface telepathy telephone temperature thermionic valve things tion tissues transmitted trees turbine valve VICKERS VIMY waves weather wind wire wireless telegraphy
Popular passages
Page 645 - When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we should remember that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years through the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly...
Page 644 - For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine...
Page 645 - It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.
Page 618 - It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals ; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense organs, and directing the several movements
Page 706 - ... more than engulfed. It is hard to say what difficulties living creatures may not conquer or circumvent. . . . When we consider the filling of every niche, the finding of homes in extraordinary places, the mastery of difficult conditions, the plasticity that adjusts to out-of-the-way exigencies, the circumvention of space (as in migration), and the conquest of time (as in hibernation), we begin to get an impression of the insurgence of life. We see life persistent and intrusive — spreading everywhere,...
Page 648 - ... earth adhering to it, and weighing six and a half ounces. The earth had been kept for three years, but when broken, watered and placed under a bell glass, no less than eighty-two plants...
Page 706 - But in addition to the abundance of life — alike of individualities and of individuals — there is the quality of insurgence. Living creatures press up against all barriers; they fill every possible niche all the world over ; they show that Nature abhors a vacuum. We find animals among the snow on Monte Rosa at a height of over ten thousand feet; we dredge them from the floor of the sea, from those great "deeps" of over six miles where Mount Everest would be much more than engulfed.
Page 586 - ... they were there, and that everything was transparent to my senses. I saw plainly, for instance, a poor RAMC surgeon, of whose existence I had not known, and who was in quite another part of the hospital, grow very ill and scream and die ; I saw them cover his corpse and carry him softly out on shoeless feet, quietly and surreptitiously, lest we should know that he had died, and the next night — I thought — take him away to the cemetery. Afterwards, when I told these happenings to the sisters,...
Page 570 - Even if we cannot entertain any confident hope of discovering what laws these half-seen phenomena obey, at all events it will be some gain to have shown, not as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but as a matter of ascertained fact, that there are things in heaven and earth not hitherto dreamed of in our scientific philosophy.
Page 724 - If we wish to form a mental representation of what is going on among the molecules in calm air, we cannot do better than observe a swarm of bees, when every individual bee is flying furiously, first in one direction and then in another, while the swarm, as a whole, either remains at rest or sails slowly through the air.