Various

“ Most men can do some things well, but nature is seldom so lavish of her gifts as to produce a genius who does all things equally well. It is rare to find a man like Dr. Coues, who was capable of incessant drudgery in the most prosaic technicalities, yet blessed with the poetic temperament and ardent imagination, able to array the deepest problems in a sparkling style which fascinated while it convinced. ”

“ Wind and tide are sometimes both against us, and it is a poor skipper who lacks the sense to tie up for a short time or take another course when he finds both set against him.
But there are teachers who battle fiercely against the desires and interests of their pupils, bound to compel them to learn, making a tremendous fuss, filling families with tears and tremblings, threatenings, scoldings, and reviewings—all with no permanent results of value. ”

“ These two kinds mark different stages in the transformation from plant organism to mineral product. As the biologist traces the successive steps in the evolution of an individual of a species from germ to adult, so the geologist unfolds before us the wonderful history of a piece of coal from its first appearance on the earth to the time when it is thrown into our fire grate as fuel. Coal is the metamorphosed product of vegetable growths, changed by atmospheric agencies and the internal forces of the earth acting through a total period of perhaps millions of years. ”

“ In psychology there are both a wind and a tide. The wind is what the pupil thinks of the subject—as to its usefulness in his future life. The tide is his natural interest in the thing for its own sake. ”

“ The finest things I found were India linen and Swiss mull. The India linen has a remarkable name, seeing it is not linen and is made in Scotland. The Swiss mull is nearly as well named, for it is also made in Glasgow. Whether these goods sell better because their names seem to indicate that they are made somewhere else I cannot say, but the truth seems to be that they were called by these names innocently enough by those who first made them, being proud that they could produce mull equal to the finest worn by the ladies in Switzerland or equal to the finest products of the Indian looms. ”

“ The main business of Sir Cricket is to burrow and he works away with these hands of his until he will have made a number of underground passages. And in his work he will cut off hundreds of new, tender roots that belong to plants and shrubs. And that's the mischief of him."
"What do they eat?"
"Why, little bugs; but they are fierce, hungry creatures, and when they meet a mole cricket that is weak and defenseless they pounce on him and eat him. They are no respecter of relatives."
"They don't deserve to live!" cried Boy Will, with a stamp. ”

“ Every seed hath wings. Here and there a jay, or a woodpecker. Grape-vines, fantastically running over the tops of tall bushes, grouping deformities, any one of which, if an artist drew it, would be called an exaggeration, worse than anything of Doré's. Trees, swaying and bowing to one another, like stilted clowns in Nature's afterpiece of the seasons. Trees incorporated, sycamore and elm, maple and hickory, modifying and partaking each other's nature; resembling so much as to appear one tree. A jolly gray squirrel, hopping from limb to limb, like a robin; swinging like an oriole ”

“ This is not the case with goods shipped out of Great Britain, where their long experience in handling cotton has made them more expert than we in stuffing their goods with sizing and other adulterations which make the goods deceptive. There is so little tendency in this direction among American manufacturers that our good name has given us an advantage in China and India, where our manufactures are much more readily sold than what purport to be the same of British make. ”

“ The sea island cotton grows on the islands off the coast of South Carolina, in Florida, and on the coast of Texas. The peculiar salt air and humidity of these coasts seem necessary to its perfection, for when it is planted in the interior it quickly loses its best qualities and becomes similar to the common variety. Its fibers are long and silky, and used for the finest laces, spool cotton, fine muslins, and such goods, but there is so little of it as compared with the woolly seed cotton that it is but an insignificant part of our great crop. ”

“ Public schools, Audubon societies, women's clubs, and other humanizing agencies have so modified the ideas of boys and young men that there are but few who hunt for sport.
The cheapening of the camera and its perfection for amateur use have placed a new shooting apparatus in their hands, and many young people of both sexes are now more or less expert in making exposures and developing. A shot with a camera is worth more than a shot with a gun. You have to eat or stuff the unfortunate bird or animal you shoot with a gun. When it is gone you have nothing to show for your skill. ”

“ It is true that the trees along the banks of the rivers have been tapped until their product is much inferior to what it once was, but this condition exists only for a distance of two or three miles along the river banks. There are plenty of magnificent trees standing untouched a little farther back. All that is needed to get more rubber is to get more men into these forests gathering it. The real difficulty is to get the men to do the work. The finest rubber forests remaining near the river fronts are along the Purus, one of the large rivers flowing into the Amazon from the south. ”

“ As far as external appearance indicates, a piece of common coal and the most brilliant diamond are widely separated; with regard to chemical composition they are closely related. Intermediate between the coal of the stoke furnace and the "brilliant" of the jewelry shop is still another well-known form of carbon, the graphite of the lead pencil. These three substances comprise the far greater part of carbon-containing minerals.
In so far as our mind's picture of a mineral is that of an aggregation of crystals of fairly perfect form our consideration of coal as a mineral is erroneous. ”

“ Some of the names under which white cotton goods are sold are muslins, tarletans, mulls, jaconets, nainsooks, lawns, grenadines, saccarillas, cottonade, cotton velvet, and velveteen.
Cotton is rarely manufactured where raised. It is carried to the seacoast as a rule by river steamers, though there have been instances where the laziness and ingenuity of man have combined to send it down-stream in bales completely covered with india rubber wrappings, so they floated to their destination with little care and no harm from water. ”

“ A company has been formed to let water into the Yuma desert in southern California, where 13,000 square miles of land with no inhabitants, lies below the sea level, some of it as much as 1,000 feet. A great desert in the middle of Australia is also low. If it were flooded it would make of Australia a great rim of continent reaching round an immense sea.
One scientist has advocated the making of the Red Sea into a great fresh water lake by changing the course of the Nile so as to make that sea its outlet instead of the Mediterranean. ”

“ Most of our cotton that is not exported is made up into yarns, threads, and the coarser goods, such as shirtings, sheetings, drills, print cloths, bags, and so forth. Yet there are several of our mills, especially in the North, that turn out the finer fabrics with great credit to the country. Large quantities of cotton are, of course, used up in woolen mills, where mixed goods are made, and hosiery mills, felt factories, and hat works consume it largely. Much cotton also goes into mattresses and upholstery. ”

“ Coal occurs in such quantities near the surface of the earth's crust and its outcrops are so numerous that it cannot have failed to attract the attention of the most ancient of peoples. Indeed, that coal could be used as a fuel is mentioned by a writer, Theophrastus, who lived 300 years B. C. The ancient Celts of Britain are reputed to have evidenced knowledge of the industrial value of coal. It was not until near the middle of the thirteenth century, however, that coal became so important an economic product as to result in statutes granting to certain places the privilege of mining it. ”

“ From the loose fiber that we use in treating our teeth when they get to troubling us to the delicate lace handkerchief which is such a dream of the weaver's art we use cotton for our commonest and our most extraordinary purposes.
Muslin takes its name from Mosul, in India, where it was first made. Although muslin is now made in both Europe and America in great quantities, the kind that is most famed for its fineness is that from Dacca, India. ”

“ After a long period of trial in England the superiority of coal over other fuels was recognized, and stone coal, as the harder form was commonly known, came into general use. In America bituminous, or soft coal, was mined to a slight extent in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The form now commonly used in house-heating furnaces, anthracite, for a long time baffled the colonists in their efforts to make it burn. The knowledge that an anthracite fire is most effective if not continually poked is said to have been acquired generally by accident. ”

“ The rare occurrence of diamonds indicates that the essential conditions in nature for causing the transformation of some less pure form of carbon into diamond are seldom present. While diamonds have actually been produced in the laboratory by far-seeing and indefatigable [Pg 85] chemists, yet the cost of such products is so great as to preclude the possibility of the most precious of gems becoming at all common. The diamond is the hardest of all known substances, and will scratch any other mineral across which it may be drawn. ”

“ A bamboo bow strung with catgut, like a fiddle string, is used to separate the fiber from the seed. It is carded with a big fishbone. The distaff is held in the hand and the loom is a very old-fashioned affair, home-made of bamboo reeds, so simple that a few shillings will purchase one, though a lifetime will not make one able to use it.
The weaver chooses a spot under the shade of a large tree, digs a hole in the dirt for his legs and the lower part of the "geer" and fastens his balances to some convenient bough overhead. ”

“ The average amount of cotton spun by each spindle in Great Britain that year was thirty-four and a half pounds, while the amount consumed by each spindle in America averaged just sixty-five pounds, showing that the products of our spindles are just twice as heavy on the average as those of the English and Scotch. A fortunate thing about our goods when sent abroad is that they are accurately marked and prove to be very nearly what they are represented. ”

“ There is a natural interest in children for birds. It is so strong and absorbing that it amounts to a psychological tide. The things of the bird-world act upon the child-mind rather instinctively than mentally. ”

“ You may find him about large bodies of water, and during the daytime he prefers the solitude of the forests and sits quietly in tall trees for hours, but in the early mornings and late afternoons he may be seen standing motionless at the edge of the water until a fish or a frog appears, when, with unerring stroke of his long beak, as quickly as lightning, he seizes it and beats it until dead, then swallows it; this act is often repeated. He varies his diet with meadow mice, snakes, and insects, so he certainly does not lead a very monotonous life. ”

“ In winter the killdeer is an unusually silent bird, in which season it is found dispersed over the cultivated fields in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and other southern states, diligently searching for food. Davie says that it may often be heard on moonlight nights. The nest is placed on the ground, usually in the vicinity of a stream or pond, often on an elevated spot in the grass or in a furrowed field. It is merely a slight depression in the ground. The eggs are drab or clay color, thickly spotted and blotched with blackish brown and umber, small and quite pointed. ”

“ Spanish and Russian licorice root is dried and shipped in bales or bundles. Spanish licorice root is unpeeled and occurs in pieces several feet in length. Russian licorice is usually peeled. Most of the licorice used in the United States is obtained from Italy, Russia, and Germany. Some of the licorice found upon the market is quite fragmentary and very dirty. The licorice raised in England is intended for home consumption and is placed upon the market in both the fresh and dried state. The fresh roots have an earthy and somewhat nauseous odor. ”

“ With all our boasted Yankee shrewdness and cunning in mechanics we do not make up the finer grades of cotton very extensively. As a rule the coarser kinds of cloth that take much material and less skill are made here, while the finer grades that get more value out of the pound of cotton are made abroad, chiefly in Great Britain. ”

“ These birds are generally seen in flocks when on the wing, but scatter when feeding. Pastures and cultivated fields, tracts of land near water, lakesides and marshes seem necessary to it. The sound uttered by it, kildeer, kildeer, dee, dee, is almost incessant, but it is often low and agreeable, with a plaintive strain in it. When apparently in danger the voice rises higher and shriller. Cows, horses, sheep, and the larger poultry that wander over a farm are said not to alarm these birds in the least. But they are wild in the presence of man wherever they have been persecuted. ”

“ Everybody knows that a cat, much less a stray kitten, has no soul. You may say that Hans was neither a cat nor a kitten, but some little boys of the neighborhood had sneeringly remarked that he was a "fraid-cat." Besides, his master had whipped all the spirit out of him. Therefore he, too, was without a soul. Hans petted Mizi and gave her some bread-crusts and hid her in the shed to keep her out of sight of his master. Mizi gained in flesh and became very fond of Hans, and at times would try to follow him, but Hans would take her back and put her in a more secure place. ”

“ IN THE early days every man and boy knew how to use a gun. It was a necessity of life. It brought in meat for the family. The regular business of every holiday was to go to the woods and kill. The free life of the woods, the pleasure of ranging about for a purpose, and the excitement attending success in bagging game were among their greater pleasures.
Now we live in cities mainly. Even the country boy has less regard for the gun. The game and many of the birds and animals that are not game have been killed off, so that country boys now wish to give them a chance for their lives. ”