Voyages of Manufactures 119 Waste of Human Life 123 Watch Melted by Lightning, A 105 Watt's Discovery of the Composition of Water 26 Weighing-Machine at the Bank of England 17 "Wet the Ropes!" 131 Whitebait, The Rights of 73 Who First Doubled the Cape? 91 Wonders of Australia, Sydney Smith on the 76 World in a Drop of Water, The 42 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTE. In the annals of INVENTION and DISCOVERY, it may be said without undue boasting, no nation of modern times can lay claim to such an eminent position as Great Britain; and her many ingenious and intrepid adventurers into what they found unknown regions of the arts, the sciences, and the earth's surface, have so largely contributed to raise her to her great place and power, that it is mere justice and self-interest to bestow on them grateful rewards in life, and renown after death. In this little volume are brought together a number of sketches and memoranda, illustrating the history of discovery, and the lives and labours of inventors and explorers, not of our own country alone, but of others--for knowledge is of no country, but of all. The object of the collector has been rather to present the popular than the strictly scientific side of his subject--to furnish materials of interest and amusement, as well as instruction; and if now and then he has been tempted to stray into bye-paths of anecdote and gossip, excuse may readily be found in the fact that the private life of our men of science, often singularly noble and full of character, is apt to be altogether obscured by the brilliancy of the results of their secret and silent toil. This volume will have served its purpose, if it excites an appetite for fuller and deeper inquisition into the sources of British greatness and of modern civilisation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. _CURIOUS FACTS AND ILLUSTRATIVE SKETCHES._ ------------------ POETIC PROPHECIES. In Dr. Darwin's _Botanic Garden_, first published in 1789, but written, it is well known, at least twenty years before the date of its publication, occurs the following prediction respecting Steam:--