Showing posts with label The Marvelous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Marvelous. Show all posts
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The Fairy Tales of Science by John Cargill Brough (1857)
Source. A book that decides to tell some lessons of elementary science in the language of alchemy, magic and fairy stories.
"In the year 1746, an ingenious Dutchman actually managed to coax him into a glass bottle, coated within and without with metal, but the Spirit soon escaped from his narrow prison by passing through the limbs and body of the experimentalist, who received such a violent shock that he was compelled to take to his bed. This incident, however, did not deter the philosopher from prosecuting his inquiries, and his endeavours to construct a secure prison were eventually crowned with success.
Six years after this, an American sage summoned the now docile Spirit from the clouds during a thunderstorm, by means of a boy's kite, and thus proved the identity of lightning and that force which for two thousand years was regarded as an emanation peculiar to rubbed amber.
The nineteenth century was heralded in by the announcement of a still greater fact. A learned Italian now found that he could dispense with all the old machinery of incantation, and evoke the Amber Spirit by the action of acids upon metals. He piled up alternate disks of zinc and copper, kept separate by the interposition of moistened pasteboard, and with this simple apparatus he obtained absolute control over the movements of the Spirit. He compelled him to travel along metal wires of any length; to force asunder the elementary atoms of water; to bring to light substances hitherto unknown, and to perform a hundred other feats equally wonderful. The Spirit was vanquished—the lightning was chained—and man reigned supreme."
"In the year 1746, an ingenious Dutchman actually managed to coax him into a glass bottle, coated within and without with metal, but the Spirit soon escaped from his narrow prison by passing through the limbs and body of the experimentalist, who received such a violent shock that he was compelled to take to his bed. This incident, however, did not deter the philosopher from prosecuting his inquiries, and his endeavours to construct a secure prison were eventually crowned with success.
Six years after this, an American sage summoned the now docile Spirit from the clouds during a thunderstorm, by means of a boy's kite, and thus proved the identity of lightning and that force which for two thousand years was regarded as an emanation peculiar to rubbed amber.
The nineteenth century was heralded in by the announcement of a still greater fact. A learned Italian now found that he could dispense with all the old machinery of incantation, and evoke the Amber Spirit by the action of acids upon metals. He piled up alternate disks of zinc and copper, kept separate by the interposition of moistened pasteboard, and with this simple apparatus he obtained absolute control over the movements of the Spirit. He compelled him to travel along metal wires of any length; to force asunder the elementary atoms of water; to bring to light substances hitherto unknown, and to perform a hundred other feats equally wonderful. The Spirit was vanquished—the lightning was chained—and man reigned supreme."
Monday, December 9, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
World in 2000 as Predicted in 1910
Thanks Sean Dixon for Facebooking this. And thanks Sad and Useless for posting.
Illustrations by French artist Villemard in 1910 of how he imagined the future to be in the year 2000.
Unavoidable.
Illustrations by French artist Villemard in 1910 of how he imagined the future to be in the year 2000.
Unavoidable.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
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