The Physician
The Physician
Mother and Child
Mother and Child
A Dragon Boat
Tutored Bear.—XIV. Century
One great part of the joculator's profession was the teaching of bears, apes, horses, dogs, and other animals, to imitate the actions of men, to tumble, to dance, and to perform a variety of tricks, contrary to their nature; and sometimes he learned himself to counterfeit the gestures and articulations of the brutes.
Group of African Cattle
Why the blazes don't you take it?
Huckster trying to sell something to a man
Saxon Bow and Arrow.—X. Century
This engraving is made from a manuscript of the tenth century in the Cotton Library. The bow is curiously ornamented having the head and tail of a serpent carved at the ends; and was, probably, such a one as was used by the nobility. In all these bows we may observe one thing remarkable, that is, the string not being made fast to the extremities, but permitted to play at some distance from them. How far this might be more or less advantageous than the present method, I shall not presume to determine.
Laocoon
Nature Divider
Nature Divider
Falcon with Hood
The training of a hawk is a work requiring great patience and skill, the natural wildness and intractable nature of the birds being very difficult to overcome. When a hawk suffers itself to be hooded and unhooded quietly, and will come to the trainer's hand to receive food, its education is considered far advanced, and the work of accustoming it to the lure may be proceeded with. The lure may be a piece of leather or wood, covered with the wings and feathers of a bird, and with a cord attached. The falcon is fed from it, and is recalled from flight by the falconer swinging the lure round his head with a peculiar cry. When the bird has been taught to obey the lure, it is next practised in the art of seizing its game, being initiated with prey fastened to a peg, and flown later at free game.
Divider
Of some Phænomena of Glass drops
These Glass Drops are small parcels of coarse green Glass taken out of the Pots that contain the Metal (as they call it) in fusion, upon the end of an Iron Pipe; and being exceeding hot, and thereby of a kind of sluggish fluid Confidence, are suffered to drop from thence into a Bucket of cold Water, and in it to lye till they be grown sensibly cold. Some of these I broke in the open air, by snapping off a little of the small stem with my fingers, others by crushing it with a small pair of Plyers; which I had no sooner done, then the whole bulk of the drop flew violently, with a very brisk noise, into multitudes of small pieces, some of which were as small as dust, though in some there were remaining pieces pretty large, without any flaw at all, and others very much flaw'd, which by rubbing between ones fingers was easily reduced to dust; these dispersed every way so violently, that some of them pierced my skin. I could not find either with my naked Eye, or a Microscope, that any of the broken pieces were of a regular figure, nor any one like another, but for the most part those that flaw'd off in large pieces were prettily branched. The ends of others of these drops I nipt off whilst all the bodies and ends of them lay buried under the water, which, like the former, flew all to pieces with as brisk a noise, and as strong a motion...
Halibut Hooks of Wood
Launching sea-planes from a ship’s deck
There is a type of aeroplane which will be carried to sea when a fleet sails, stowed in sections within the hull of a transport ship. This machine—a light, high-speed craft—will be assembled upon the deck of its parent ship, and launched into the air by special mechanism, as there is not room for a machine to run upon wheels, and leave the ship’s deck as it might do upon land; the vessel, besides, might be rolling in a high sea. In some cases a platform is built upon the deck, either at the bow or stern, and along this the aircraft moves, so as to gain speed for its planes to lift. In one device, seen in Figure, the machine is mounted upon a light wheeled cradle, and this is placed upon the starting-rail. Then, driven by its propeller, the plane runs forward upon the cradle till it reaches the end of the rail, when it glides into the air, the cradle falling from it and dropping into the sea, from which it is retrieved and drawn back on board the ship. The sea-plane (A.) is seen taking flight, having glided upon its cradle along the platform (B.). The cradle (C.) is just falling away below the aircraft’s hull.