"Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures" by Arabella B. Buckley. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
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Arabella B. Buckley. Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures
Through Magic Glasses and Other Lectures
Table of Contents
PREFACE
PLATES
WOODCUTS IN THE TEXT
THROUGH MAGIC GLASSES
CHAPTER I
THE MAGICIAN'S CHAMBER BY MOONLIGHT
CHAPTER II
MAGIC GLASSES, AND HOW TO USE THEM
CHAPTER III
FAIRY RINGS AND HOW THEY ARE MADE
CHAPTER IV
THE LIFE-HISTORY OF LICHENS AND MOSSES
CHAPTER V
THE HISTORY OF A LAVA STREAM
CHAPTER VI
AN HOUR WITH THE SUN
CHAPTER VII
AN EVENING AMONG THE STARS
CHAPTER VIII
LITTLE BEINGS FROM A MINIATURE OCEAN
CHAPTER IX
THE DARTMOOR PONIES, OR. THE WANDERINGS OF THE HORSE TRIBE
CHAPTER X
THE MAGICIAN'S DREAM OF ANCIENT DAYS
INDEX
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS
Отрывок из книги
Arabella B. Buckley
A Sequel to The Fairyland of Science
.....
he sun shone brightly into the science class-room at mid-day. No gaunt shadows nor ghostly moonlight now threw a spell on the magic chamber above. The instruments looked bright and business-like, and the Principal, moving amongst them, heard the subdued hum of fifty or more voices rising from below. It was the lecture hour, and the subject for the day was, "Magic glasses, and how to use them." As the large clock in the hall sounded twelve, the Principal gathered up a few stray lenses and prisms he had selected, and passed down the turret stair to his platform. Behind him were arranged his diagrams, before him on the table stood various instruments, and the rows of bright faces beyond looked up with one consent as the hum quieted down and he began his lecture.
"I have often told you, boys, have I not? that I am a Magician. In my chamber near the sky I work spells as did the magicians of old, and by the help of my magic glasses I peer into the secrets of nature. Thus I read the secrets of the distant stars; I catch the light of wandering comets, and make it reveal its origin; I penetrate into the whirlpools of the sun; I map out the craters of the moon. Nor can the tiniest being on earth hide itself from me. Where others see only a drop of muddy water, that water brought into my magic chamber teems with thousands of active bodies, darting here and whirling there amid a meadow of tiny green plants floating in the water. Nay, my inquisitive glass sees even farther than this, for with it I can watch the eddies of water and green atoms going on in each of these tiny beings as they feed and grow. Again, if I want to break into the secrets of the rock at my feet, I have only to put a thin slice of it under my microscope to trace every crystal and grain; or, if I wish to learn still more, I subject it to fiery heat, and through the magic prisms of my spectroscope I read the history of the very substances of which it is composed. If I wish to study the treasures of the wide ocean, the slime from a rock-pool teems with fairy forms darting about in the live box imprisoned in a crystal home. If some distant stars are invisible even in the giant glasses of my telescope, I set another power to work, and make them print their own image on a photographic plate and so reveal their presence.
