SCIENTIFIC RECREATIONS.
CHAPTER I.—INTRODUCTORY.
SCIENCE AND RECREATION—THE BOOK OF NATURE—THE SENSES—NATURAL HISTORY—NATURAL PHILOSOPHY—MATTER—OBJECTS—PROPERTIES OF MATTER.
It may at the first glance appear paradoxical to combine Science and Recreation, but we hope to show that true scientific recreation is anything but the dry bones of learning. To those who study science with us, we will point out first how easy and pleasant it is to watch the sky and the plants and Nature generally in the open air. Then we will carry our readers along with us, and by means of illustrations and diagrams instruct them pleasantly in the reasons for things. “How?” and “Why?” will be questions fully answered. Not only will the usual scientific courses be touched upon, but we will show how Science is applied to Domestic Economy. We will have Chemistry put before us without needing a laboratory, and we will experiment in Physics without elaborate apparatus. We will have, in short, a complete Encyclopædia of Science free from dryness and technicalities—an amusing volume suited to old and young who wish to find out what is going on around them in their daily life in earth and sea and sky.
Bernard Palissy used to say that he wished “no other book than the earth and the sky,” and that “it was given to all to read this wonderful book.”
It is indeed by the study of the material world that discoveries are accomplished. Let an attentive observer watch a ray of light passing from the air into water, and he will see it deviate from the straight line by refraction; let him seek the origin of a sound, and he will discover that it results from a shock or a vibration. This is physical science in its infancy. It is said that Newton was led to discover the laws of universal gravitation by beholding an apple fall to the ground, and that Montgolfier first dreamt of air-balloons while watching fogs floating in the atmosphere. The idea of the inner chamber of the eye may, in like manner, be developed in the mind of any observer, who, seated beneath the shade of a tree, looks fixedly at the round form of the sun through the openings in the leaves.