- Rush For the gold fields
Rush For the gold fields - Edison with his Phonograph
Edison with his Phonograph In 1878 Mr Edison made a number of phonographs, which were exhibited in America and Europe, and attracted universal attention. The records were made in these on soft tinfoil sheets fastened around metal cylinders. For a while Mr Edison was compelled to suspend work on this invention, but soon returned to it and worked out the machine as it exists practically to-day. It occupies about the same space as a hand sewing-machine. A light tube of wax to slide on and off the cylinder is substituted for the tinfoil, which had been wrapped round it, and the indenting stylus is replaced by a minute engraving point. Under the varying pressure of the sound-waves, this point or knife cuts into the tube almost imperceptibly, the wax chiselled away wreathing off in very fine spirals before the edge of the little blade, as the cylinder travels under it. Each cylinder will receive about a thousand words. In the improved machine Mr Edison at first employed two diaphragms in 'spectacle' form, one to receive and the other to reproduce; but he has since combined these in a single efficient attachment. - La France
One of the largest sailing-ships afloat is the French five-master, La France, launched in 1890 on the Clyde, and owned by Messrs A. D. Bordes et Fils, who possess a large fleet of sailing-vessels. In 1891 she came from Iquique to Dunkirk in one hundred and five days with 6000 tons of nitrate; yet she was stopped on the Tyne when proceeding to sea with 5500 tons of coal, and compelled to take out 500 tons on the ground that she was overladen. - The Dandy-horse
The Dandy-horse of 1818, the two wheels on which the rider sat astride, tipping the ground with his feet in order to propel the machine, was laughed out of existence. - The Duke of Wellington
One of the 'Wooden Walls of Old England.' The Duke of Wellington Screw Line-of-Battle Ship. One hundred and thirty-one Guns. - Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun
Rifle-calibre Maxim Gun Its rate of firing—770 shots a minute—is at least three times as rapid as that of any other machine gun.
It has only a single barrel, which, when the shot is fired, recoils a distance of three-quarters of an inch on the other parts of the gun.
This recoil sets moving the machinery which automatically keeps up a continuous fire at the extraordinary rate of 12 rounds a second.
Each recoil of the barrel has therefore to perform the necessary functions of extracting and ejecting the empty cartridge,
or bringing up the next full one and placing it in its proper position in the barrel, of cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger.
As long as the firing continues, these functions are repeated round after round in succession.
The barrel is provided with a water jacket, to prevent excessive heating;
and is so mounted that it can be raised or lowered or set at any angle, or turned horizontally to the left or to the right.
The bore is adapted to the present size of cartridges; and the maximum range is eighteen hundred yards.
The gun can therefore be made to sweep a circle upwards of a mile in radius. - Lord Armstrong
Armstrong, during the Crimean War, made an explosive apparatus for blowing up ships sunk at Sebastopol. This led him to turn his attention to improvements in ordnance. He invented a kind of breech-loading cannon, and soon had an order for several field-pieces after the same pattern. He began with guns throwing 6 lb. and 18 lb. shot and shells, and afterwards 32 lb. shells; and the results at the time were deemed almost incredible. He had both reduced the weight of the gun by one-half, reduced the charge of powder, and his gun sent the shell about three times farther. His success led to his offering to government all his past inventions, and any that he might in the future discover. A post was created for him, that of Chief Engineer of Rifled Ordnance for seven years provisionally. - Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark
Nordenfelt-Palmcrantz Gun mounted on Ship's Bulwark Machine guns have succeeded one another with extraordinary rapidity, and a gun seems only to be adopted in order to be superseded. Thus we have had during the last few years a series of these weapons bearing the names of Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and Maxim, - Gatling Gun on Field Carriage
Gatling Gun on Field Carriage These weapons are, as part of the regular equipment of armies, quite modern, though the idea of binding together a quantity of barrels and then discharging them at once, or with great rapidity one after another, is not altogether novel. Sometimes, instead of a number of barrels, one only is required, and the cartridges are discharged from short barrels or chambers which are brought in turn into position with the longer one. - The Great Harry
Some of the earliest three-deckers, or, as we may almost call them, five-deckers, were built at this dockyard; and of these the most famous was the Great Harry, so named after the king, which was launched here in 1514. For the period, the ship was a large one, being of a thousand tons burden; though we should not think much of her size now, when we have ironclads of over eleven thousand tons. There are models of her in the Greenwich Naval Museum, which is not far from Woolwich; and a curious lofty wooden castle she is, rising far up above the water-line, and offering a fair target, if the cannon of those days had any accuracy. - Prospecting for Gold
Prospecting for Gold - Wool-sorters at Work
Wool-sorters at Work In 1886 the pastoral wealth of the whole of the Australian colonies consisted of 84,222,272 sheep. At only ten shillings per head, this represents a capital of over forty-two millions sterling, without counting the value of the land. The number of sheep in 1894 was over 99,000,000. - Chinese Porcelain Vase
It was in 1751 that Dr Wall, a chemist and artist, completed his experiment in the combination of various elements, and produced a porcelain which was more like the true or natural Chinese porcelain than any ever devised. This was the more remarkable because kaolin had not then been discovered in this country. - Portland Vase
Portland Vase Wedgwood's copy of the Barberini or Portland Vase was a great triumph of his art. This vase, which had contained the ashes of the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother, was of dark-blue glass, with white enamel figures. It now stands in the medal room of the British Museum alongside a model by Wedgwood. It stands 10 inches high, and is the finest specimen of an ancient cameo cut-glass vase known. It was smashed by a madman in 1845, but was afterwards skilfully repaired. Wedgwood made fifty copies in fine earthenware, which were originally sold at 25 guineas each. One of these now fetches £200. The vase itself once changed hands for eighteen hundred guineas, and a copy fetched two hundred and fifteen guineas in 1892. - Wedgwood at Work
Wedgwood at Work He was bound apprentice to his brother Thomas in 1744, when in his fourteenth year; but this weak knee, which hampered him so much, proved a blessing in disguise, for it sent him from the thrower's place to the moulder's board, where he improved the ware, his first effort being an ornamental teapot made of the ochreous clay of the district. - Josiah Wedgewood
Josiah Wedgewood More than once it has happened that the youngest of thirteen children has turned out a genius. It was so in the case of Sir Richard Arkwright, and it turned out to be so in the case of Josiah Wedgwood, the youngest of the thirteen children of Thomas Wedgwood, a Burslem potter, and of Mary Stringer, a kind-hearted but delicate, sensitive woman, the daughter of a nonconformist clergyman. The town of Burslem, in Staffordshire, where Wedgwood saw the light in 1730, was then anything but an attractive place. Drinking and cock-fighting were the common recreations; roads had scarcely any existence; the thatched hovels had dunghills before the doors, while the hollows from which the potter's clay was excavated were filled with stagnant water, and the atmosphere of the whole place was coarse and unwholesome, and a most unlikely nursery of genius. - Krupp's 15.6 Breech-loading Gun (breech open)
Amongst the class of modern cannon, one of the most powerful is Krupp's seventy-one-ton gun. This, like all others of his make, is a breech-loader. Its dimensions are—length, thirty-two feet nine inches; diameter at breech end, five feet six inches; length of bore, twenty-eight feet seven inches; diameter of bore, 15.75 inches; diameter of powder-chamber, 17.32 inches. The internal tube is of two parts, exactly joined; and over this are four cylinders, shrunk on, and a ring round the breech. Its rifling has a uniform twist of one in forty-five. It cannot possibly be fired until the breech is perfectly closed. Its maximum charge is four hundred and eighty-five pounds of powder, and a chilled iron shell of seventeen hundred and eight pounds. - Bessemer Process
Sir Henry Bessemer says: 'It is this new material, so much stronger and tougher than common iron, that now builds our ships of war and our mercantile marine. Steel forms their boilers, their propeller shafts, their hulls, their masts and spars, their standing rigging, their cable chains and anchors, and also their guns and armour-plating. This new material has covered with a network of steel rails the surface of every country in Europe, and in America alone there are no less than 175,000 miles of Bessemer steel rails.' These steel rails last six times longer than if laid of iron.' - Bessemer Converting Vessel
a, a, a, tuyères; b, air-space; c, melted metal A very important development of the manufacture of steel followed the introduction of the 'Bessemer process,' by means of which a low carbon or mild cast-steel can be produced at about one-tenth of the cost of crucible steel. It is used for rails, for the tires of the wheels of railway carriages, for ship-plates, boiler-plates, for shafting, and a multitude of constructional and other purposes to which only wrought iron was formerly applied, besides many for which no metal at all was used. - Nasmyth's Steam-hammer
This machine enlarged at one bound the whole scale of working in iron, and permitted Maudsley's lathe to develop its entire range of capacity. The old 'tilt-hammer' was so constructed that the more voluminous the material submitted to it, the less was the power attainable; so that as soon as certain dimensions had been exceeded, the hammer became utterly useless. - Section of the Goubet Submarine Boat
The Goubet class are of iron, sixteen feet long, three feet wide, and about six feet deep. The motive power is a Siemens motor driven by storage batteries. Fifty of these boats were purchased by the Russian government. They have no rudder, but a universal joint in the screw shaft permits of the screw being moved through an arc of ninety degrees. The torpedo is carried outside the boat, secured by a catch worked from inside. On arriving under the enemy, the torpedo is released, and striking the ship's bottom, is held there by spikes. The boat then withdraws, unreeling a connecting wire; and when at a safe distance, fires. The absence of a rudder, however, causes erratic steering, and the spikes with which the torpedo is fitted might fail to stick in steel-bottomed ships. - Queen of Assur-nasir-pal
Queen of Assur-nasir-pal - short-sleeved coat
6th to 5th Century BC - sixth to fifth centuries B.C.
Persian Costume of 6th to 5th Century BC - The God Osiris
The God Osiris - Thuthu
THuthu, wife of Ani - A captive of Sennacherib
This woman, a captive of Sennacherib who reigned in eighth and seventh centuries B.C., wears a long tunic - An Egyptian goddess
A goddess, 700 B.C., is an exact copy of an Egyptian drawing. - A hunter
This man, in hunting dress dates from ninth century B.C - A Priestess
A Priestess - A Queen
Egyptian queen - A Queen
An Egyptian queen - Ani, a scribe
Ani, a scribe 1450 B.C. - Assyrian
Assyrian - Darius, king of Persia
Darius, king of Persia - Details of decoration
Details of decoration - Eighth century BC
Eighth century BC Persian costume - King Assur-nasir-pal
King Assur-nasir-pal (ninth century B.C.) - King Assur-nasir-pal
King Assur-nasir-pal - Mythological Personage
This type of dress, which in the British Museum is described as worn by “a Mythological Figure in attendance upon King Assur-nasir-pal”, ninth century B.C., might be dated about 1000 B.C., as following the usual custom of the ancients who dressed their sacred figures in the costume of some previous generation as a rule - Persian
The costume is considered to be that of a Jewish captive of the Persian conqueror and dates sixth to fifth centuries B.C - Standing High Jump
Standing jumps are either high or broad, the latter being the most common. The secret of making a high standing jump consists in standing sidewise to the bar or tape, and throwing the body over as if vaulting with one hand, arching the back inward as much as possible. The best standing high jumper on record is E. W. Johnson, a Toronto man, now keeper of the Baltimore Athletic Club Gymnasium. He jumped a bar 5 feet 3 inches high, at the Caledonian Games, at Baltimore, May 27, 1878. - A professional walker
You are at full liberty to laugh at the figure, for there is no question that it has strong elements of the ludicrous; but for all that it is not exaggerated, and such attitudes may be seen in every last short-distance match. In the professional, the weight falls on a nearly perpendicular column through the body, which is in balance, striking the ground midway between the points of support—the feet. If the man were to stop just where he is, he is in a position to resist a shove either forward or back. A smart push from behind would infallibly send our unskilled friend on his nose. - An unskilled walker
The unskilled amateur, who sets out to walk fast, generally makes several grave mistakes. He leans his body forward, bends his back, lowers his head, swings his arms at full length, and allows his knees to bend. The consequence is that when he is doing his very best his attitude is very much like that in the first cut, depicting the unskilled walker. There is no question that the poor fellow is doing his best, and very little doubt that he can not last long at the rate he is going. - Archer
"A little care at first will save you a great deal of trouble and annoyance. When you begin to shoot, learn at once to stand firmly on your feet, the left slightly advanced, the head easily poised, the upper portion of the body gently inclined forward, and the shoulders neither lifted nor drooped. Hold the bow vertically with the left hand, the arm extended straight. Nock the arrow well on the string, draw with all the fingers of your right hand till you feel your right ear, fix your eyes steadily on the target and let fly. The arrow rests on the left hand, and is drawn to the head. The nock end of the shaft is held between the first and second fingers of the right hand and upon the string, which is drawn to the right ear by all the fingers being hooked stiffly over it. The release must be smart and clear, giving the arrow a strong, even flight. - Long Distance Runner
The first thing that one notices about this figure is its ease, and the absence of all appearance of effort. The professional walker, looks as if he was walking hard, but this fellow seems trying to run as slow as he can. The fact is that, while not actually trying to go slow, he is trying to save himself as much exertion as is compatible with getting over the ground a little faster than the fastest walk. Such a pace is from six to eight miles an hour, and such a pace can be maintained by a well-trained man like Rowell after he is unable to walk over three miles an hour. - Sprint Runner
Sprint running is only an exaggeration of the system displayed in long-distance work. The arms rise as in fast walking, and for the same reasons, till they are doubled up. The work, being fast, requires that the lungs be kept expanded, therefore the arms are kept stiff and rigid to aid the chest muscles in holding out the walls of the thorax to give room to the lungs. The distribution of weight, on account of the rapid motion, comes to be much the same as in fast walking, but the knees are bent of necessity; because in running the progression is made by springs from toe to toe, instead of heel to heel. The same cause admits of the upper part of the body falling forward, though the elevation of nose and hollowing of back is even more important than in long-distance work, inasmuch as the exertion is more severe while it lasts. - Christopher Columbus
Columbus was a man of commanding presence. He was large, tall, and dignified in bearing, with a ruddy complexion and piercing blue-gray eyes. By the time he was thirty his hair had become white, and fell in[Pg 4] wavy locks about his shoulders. Although his life of hardship and poverty compelled him to be plain and simple in food and dress, he always had the air of a gentleman, and his manners were pleasing and courteous. But he had a strong will, which overcame difficulties that would have overwhelmed most men. - The Santa Maria
The three caravels that were at length got ready for the perilous expedition westward in search of the Indies were not larger than many of the fishing-boats of to-day. The largest of the three—the flagship of Columbus—was called the Santa Maria. The other two were the Pinta and the Niña ("Baby"). The Santa Maria alone had a deck covering the entire hold of the vessel. - The Nina
On Christmas morning (December 25, 1492), while it was still dark, as he was cruising along the shores of[Pg 16] Hayti (or Hispaniola), the Santa Maria went aground on a sand-bar, where the waves soon knocked her to pieces. As the Pinta had already deserted, there now remained but one ship, the Niña. This little vessel was too small to accommodate all the men, and forty of the number, wishing to stay where they were, decided to build a fort out of the timbers of the wrecked vessel and put her guns in the fort for their defence. These men had provisions for a year, and constituted the first Spanish colony in the New World. - The Pinta
The Pinta - The First Voyage of Columbus
The First Voyage of Columbus - The Triumphal Return of Columbus to Spain
The successful voyager lost no time in reaching Barcelona, where he was received by the king and queen with triumphal honors. Everybody was ready to praise the man who had become so famous. There was a great procession in his honor in the streets of Barcelona. Leading this street parade were six Indians whom Columbus had brought back with him. These were smeared with paint, decked with feathers of tropical birds, and ornamented with bits of gold. Following them came men carrying stuffed and live birds of brilliant plumage, and the skins of different animals, all products of the New Land. Columbus rode on horseback, attended by many of Spain's great men, mounted on horses. - Hernando De Soto
While Cortez and Pizarro had been conquering Mexico and Peru, other Spaniards had been seeking their fortune in Florida. Thus far these men had brought back no gold and silver, but their faith in the mines of the interior was so great that De Soto wished to conquer and explore the country. Having already won great influence by his achievements, he secured the favor of the king, who made him governor of the island of Cuba, and appointed him leader of an expedition to conquer and occupy Florida. He was to take men enough with him to build forts and plant a colony, so as to hold the country for Spain. - Routes Traversed by De Soto and De Leon
Routes Traversed by De Soto and De Leon - Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh by a simple act of courtesy he won the admiration of the powerful queen Elizabeth. It happened in this way. On one occasion, when with her attendants she was about to cross a muddy road, Raleigh stood looking on. Noticing that the queen hesitated for an instant, he took from his shoulder his beautiful velvet cloak and gallantly spread it in her pathway. The queen, greatly pleased with this delicate attention, took Raleigh into her Court and in time bestowed upon him much honor. - Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth - Tower of London
On the death of Queen Elizabeth, James I. became king and, not favoring Raleigh, at length threw him into prison on a charge of treason. After an imprisonment of twelve years in the Tower of London, Sir Walter was beheaded. - Entrance to Raleigh's Cell in the Tower
After an imprisonment of twelve years in the Tower of London, Sir Walter was beheaded. - Ruins of Jamestown
Ruins of Jamestown