Volume 1

Popular science / edited by Arthur Mee.

Date:
1912-1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Popular science / edited by Arthur Mee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    this little ball comes all the iron of which our ships are made, all the stone with which we build, all the gold for which we crave. Round about this globe, above and below and on every side, roll invisible oceans—of air that gives us life, of force that drives our wheels, of waves that carry our words as if on wings. This is the story of the making and the shaping of the earth and the waters of the earth, of the forces which spring from the earth, and the things of which the earth is made. It is the story of our home, of what we mostly mean by Nature—that Nature which, in a few short ages only, men have learned to command, in Bacon’s words, by learning to obey her. GROUP 3 LIFE Life Takes Possession For ages our red-hot earth swung round in space. Its fires cooled down ; the seas were formed ; and there came into the sea one day what was, so far as we know, the only thing in all these worlds that moved of itself. Life grew up in the waters and crept ashore, and on land life grew until, in its strength, it took possession of the earth. For millions of years life built up for itself millions of homes—plant homes, keeping to the place where they were built, and animal homes, moving from place to place. For millions of years life crept into things of all sorts and shapes— hideous, beautiful, monstrous, small, creeping, flying, crawling, walking, swimming-; rising from the earth like an oak, dancing in the air like a gnat, crashing through the forest like a mastodon, creeping in the grass like a snake, bursting from the bud like a rose, rising to the sky like a lark, singing like a nightingale, roaring like a lion. Like a wave life swept across the earth, until sky and sea, and mountain and valley and plain, became the home of millions of incredible things, living and dying and giving new life to their kind. Then came a living thing that could speak and think and act and know itself, and at last Man was upon the earth, an insignificant creature, surrounded with wild beasts many times his size, and with many times his power. GROUP 4 PLANT LIFE The Earth Alive Life covered the eafth. At first, perhaps, it was movement. Perhaps the first living thing was just a creature that could move itself. And then all things seemed to feel the thrill of life. Over the surface of the earth was spread a wonderful carpet, a thing of colour and beauty that repaired and renewed itself, a universal livino- crarment woven by the Hand, that made the i i J