Front Matter

Preface

T HE Ten Lectures of which this volume is composed were delivered last spring, in St. John's Wood, to a large audience of children and their friends, and at their conclusion I was asked by many of those present to publish them for a child's reading book.

At first I hesitated, feeling that written words can never produce the same effect as viva-voce  delivery. But the majority of my juvenile hearers were evidently so deeply interested that I am encouraged to think that the present work may be a source of pleasure to a wider circle of young people, and at the same time awaken in them a love of nature and of the study of science.

The Lectures have been entirely rewritten from the short notes used when they were delivered. With the exception of the first of the series, none of them have any pretensions to originality, their object being merely to explain well-known natural facts in simple and pleasant language. Throughout the whole book I have availed myself freely of the leading popular works on science, but have found it impossible to give special references, as nearly all the matter I have dealt with has long been the common property of scientific teachers.