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The Chemical History of a Candle is a series of 6 lectures on chemistry presented to a juvenile audience in 1848. Taught by Michael Faraday - a chemist and physist, and regarded as the best experimentalist in the history of science - it is probably the most famous of the Christmas Lectures of the Royal Society. Taking the everyday burning of a candle as a starting point, Faraday spans the arc from combustion and its products, via the components of water and air (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon), back to the type of combustion that happens in the human body when we breathe. The final lecture On Platinum describes a then new method to produce large quantities of Platinum. It was delivered before the Royal Institution on February 22, 1861. (Summary by Availle.)...

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Nature, Science

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A collection of short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches and reports included in this collection were independently selected by the readers, and the topics encompass history, government, military history, science, philosophy, sports, nature and religion. (summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

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History, Nature, Philosophy, Religion, War stories, Science, Politics

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In By Pond and River , another of Arabella Buckley's wonderful science books for children, she explains the habitats of ponds and rivers, exposing children to the animals and plant life that are found there. (Summary by Laura Caldwell)...

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Science, Nature, Children, Animals

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If this book were written today, it would be called The Story of the World's Rubbish. That may not sound a promising subject for a book, but we are taken on a journey all over the world (and beyond) to explain the many varieties of dust and refuse - animal, vegetable and mineral - how it is made both by man and by nature, what happens to it, and why we need it. We find that recycling is nothing new: man has been doing it for centuries, and nature has been doing it for billions of years. As every schoolboy knows, 'matter is neither created nor destroyed', so it stands to reason that every particle of it must be somewhere. This study of our knowledge of the earth was written for the layman before most of the -ologies were even a twinkle in a professor's eye. Geology, meteorology, hydrology, biology, glaciology and even sociology and anthropology all have their place in this readable and enjoyable tour of the earth's 'lumber room'. Though some of the science is out of date - it was written, for instance, 80 years before the theory of plate tectonics was understood - the author admits candidly when the science of the day does not yet pr...

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Nature, Science

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volunteers bring you 17 recordings of Growing Old by Matthew Arnold. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 17, 2011. Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Instruction, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry

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Henry Gray's classic anatomy textbook was first published in 1858 and has been in continuous publication ever since, revised and expanded through many successive editions. This recording is of the public-domain 1918 US edition (some information may be outdated). The illustrations can be found in the online text at bartleby.com. For the recording, we have divided the book into five parts. Part 4 includes Neurology, the Organs of the Senses, and the Common Integument. (summary by Laurie Anne Walden)...

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Science, Nature, Instruction

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Ballad of the Tempest by James T. Fields. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for July 4th, 2010.

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Adventure, Nature, Religion, Sea stories, Poetry

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This is not a manual of instruction for orchid growers; though there are many hints on cultivation, and a few paragraphs on how to hybridize. The author is just an enthusiastic amateur orchid lover. He takes the reader on a wander through the dangers and consequences of hunting orchids in the tropical jungles of the nineteenth century, and chats about the extreme peculiarities of orchid growth, behaviour and structure, colouring the essays with his own experiences and with his delight in cultivating these beautiful plants. Beware! A new hobby beckons! (Summary by Peter Yearsley)...

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Instruction, Nature

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Wordsworth was a defining member of the English Romantic Movement. Like other Romantics, Wordsworth’s personality and poetry were deeply influenced by his love of nature, especially by the sights and scenes of the Lake Country, in which he spent most of his mature life. A profoundly earnest and sincere thinker, he displayed a high seriousness tempered with tenderness and a love of simplicity. (summary from Bartleby.com)...

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Poetry, Nature, Romance

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Safe in their Alabaster Chambers by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 6, 2012. Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.[3] Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Fantasy, Nature, Philosophy, Religion, Poetry

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Robert Frost, who lived from March 26, 1874 to January 29, 1963, was a winner of 4 Pulitzer prizes and one of America’s best loved poets. This selection of his poems is a short walk through the variety of his simplistic natural themes and complex social understandings. (Summary by Becky Miller, Canal Winchester, Ohio)...

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Nature, Poetry

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Nature Near Home is one of many books on natural history by John Burroughs. It is full of simple observations about rural scenes and charming stories about animals, plants, and even people! Burroughs loves the creatures around him and derives great pleasure from his walks and studies in nature’s scenes. (Summary by Edith Phern)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Nature

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volunteers bring you 17 recordings of After Music by Josephine Preston Peabody. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 10, 2011. Josephine Preston Peabody was an American poet and dramatist. She was born in New York and educated at the Girls' Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College. (summary from Wikipedia) After Music is taken from An American Anthology, 1787–1900, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908)...

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Instruction, Nature, Philosophy, Music, Poetry

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The value of the honey bee in cross pollinating the flowers of fruit trees makes it desirable that exact information be available concerning the actions of the bee when gathering and manipulating the pollen. The results recorded in this manuscript are also of value as studies in the behavior of the bee and will prove interesting and valuable to the bee keeper. The work here recorded was done by Dr. Casteel during the summers of 1911 and 1912. (Summary from introduction of manuscript)...

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Animals, Nature, Science, Essay/Short nonfiction, Instruction

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National Geographic Magazine Volume 1 Number 2 published in 1889. Topics of articles are: Africa, its Past and Future Reports on: Geography of the Land Geography of the Sea Geography of the Air Geography of Life (Summary by Guero)...

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Memoirs, Nature, Science

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The Desert by John Charles Van Dyke, published in 1901, is a lush, poetic description of the natural beauty of the American Southwest. What land can equal the desert with its wide plains, its grim mountains, and its expanding canopy of sky! Van Dyke, a cultivated art historian, saw sublimity in the desert's lonely desolation, which previous generations had perceived only as a wasteland, and his book has a conservationist flavor which seems distinctly modern. The deserts should never be reclaimed, he writes. They are the breathing spaces of the west and should be preserved for ever. The changing colors of the sky, hills, and sand impress Van Dyke, as do the mirages. He celebrates the long overlooked commonplace things of nature-- cactus and grease wood, desert animals, and winged life, the birds and insects. His writing has a philosophical undertone. Not in vain these wastes of sand ... simply because they are beautiful in themselves and good to look upon whether they be life or death. Anyone who views with equal awe fiery sunrises and weeds growing out of pavement cracks will enjoy this reading of Van Dyke's The Desert. (Summary by ...

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Nature, Travel

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Mrs. Beeton's is a guide to all aspects of running a household in Victorian Britain. Published in 1861, it was an immediate bestseller, running to millions of copies within just a few years. In the cookery sections, Mrs. Beeton follows the animal from his birth to his appearance on the table.” Learn how to care for poultry during moulting season, how to wean calves, how to cure hams, salt cod, carve mutton, and much more. (Summary by Wikipedia and Sarah Jennings)...

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Cookery, Nature, Advice, Instruction

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Freckles is a young man who has been raised since infancy in a Chicago orphanage. His one dream is to find a job, a place to belong and people who accept him despite his youth and the disability of having only one hand. He finds this place in the Limberlost Swamp, as a Limberlost guard of precious timber. In the process, he discovers a love for the wilderness and animals he encounters every day on his rounds and a burning desire to learn about all the new birds and plants he sees on his rounds every day. He also finds and falls in love with a girl he calls the Swamp Angel. This is the story of his plucky courage in sticking to his job in the swamp, and his adventures in learning about the natural world he finds himself in every day. He is befriended by the Bird Woman and with her help learns to love the Limberlost he has been hired to guard. (Summary by Mary Anderson)...

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Nature, Fiction

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of What Is Love? by Ernest Dowson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 15, 2012. Ernest Christopher Dowson, born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement. Dowson is best remembered for some vivid phrases, such as days of wine and roses from his poem Vitae Summa Brevis....

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Poetry, Nature, Philosophy

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Written in the first century b.C., On the Nature of Things (in Latin, De Rerum Natura ) is a poem in six books that aims at explaining the Epicurean philosophy to the Roman audience. Among digressions about the importance of philosophy in men's life and praises of Epicurus, Lucretius created a solid treatise on the atomic theory, the falseness of religion and many kinds of natural phenomena. With no harm to his philosophical scope, the author composed a didactic poem of epic flavor, of which the imagery and style are highly praised. (Summary by Leni)...

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Poetry, Nature, Science