Half-Hours with the Best Foreign Authors (Volume 3) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888. Excerpt: ... with their paws in the air, all killed by the same thunderbolt. The wire of their cage had without doubt attracted the lightning. Thus perished together, as they had lived together, thirty-two Norway rats, --an enviable death, and one not often granted by implacable fate VIRGIN FORESTS. ARTHUR MANGIN. The French stand at the head of all modern nations in the power of making science attractive, and in the writings of Figuier, Flammarion, Michelet, and others who might be named, subjects which are usually voted dry and difficult are made as light, clear, and attractive as the romance of some other nations. From one of these works of popular science, "The Desert World" of Arthur Mangin, we offer the following selection, with the assurance that it cannot fail to prove of interest to readers. In all parts of the world some regions exist where, owing to a concourse of favorable circumstances, the productive forces of nature have been able to manifest themselves with an exceptional energy, --where vegetable life, in particular, has acquired an extraordinary development. The rich soil is covered, over more or less extensive areas, with vivacious plants, robust and of great stature, which, closely rooted, one against another, with intertwining and overarching boughs, sustaining by their bulk and shading with their foliage other and weaker plants, have formed in the course of innumerable ages those masses of umbrageous gloom called forests. These undoubtedly are one of the grandest and most impressive monuments of the creative power, one, I may add, of the most eloquent, for there is nothing in all nature whose study better repays the student, or which more largely abounds in important lessons. The virgin forest, moreover, is one of the sanctuaries of nature, where ...