Quick Excerpts, from a Library of 492 Titles

Generated 2022-07-28 13:26:11

Excerpt #1, from Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958

…Comparison with ground-based controls revealed no measurable differences. Radiation dosimetry from the Mercury series established that minimal exposures were encountered at those orbital altitudes. A typical example is the MA-8 flight of W. M. Schirra, Jr., during which the body surface dosage was less than 30 millirads. NASA has supported fundamental radiation studies at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. Emphasis has been placed on the biological effects of high-energy proton radiation and particulate radiation from accelerators. At the NASA Ames Research Center extensive fundamental studies are being carried out on the effects of radiation, especially in the nervous system. It has been demonstrated that deposits accumulate in the brain following exposure to large doses of ionizing particle radiation as well as after X-irradiation. These deposits, referred to as a “chemical lesion,” result from an accumulation of glycogen. The formation of these deposits during exposure to large doses of X-irradiation was not increased in environments of 99.5 percent oxygen and increased atmospheric pressure. SIMULATION OF PLANETARY (MARTIAN) ENVIRONMENTS Attempts have been made to simulate to some degree the various…

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Excerpt #2, from Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures, by Howard Roger Garis

…“Yes, of course I want you,” replied the dog. “Then I guess I’ve got to go!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he looked for his crutch and valise. “I guess this is the end of my fortune-hunting. Goodbye everybody!” And he felt so badly that two big tears rolled down his ears–I mean his eyes. Well, he bravely walked out of the door, and as he did so the dog-soldier, with the gun, exclaimed: “Ah, here you are at last! Now hurry up, Uncle Wiggily, or we’ll be late for the parade!” And, would you believe it? that dog was good, kind, old Percival, who used to be in a circus. And of course he wouldn’t hurt the rabbit gentleman for anything. Percival just put his gun to his shoulder, and said: “Come on, we’ll get in the parade now.” “Parade? What parade?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Oh my! how you frightened me!” “Why the Decoration Day parade,” answered Percival. "To-day is the day when we put flowers on the soldiers’ graves, and remember them for being so brave as to go to war. All old soldiers march in the parade, and so do all their friends. I’m going to march, and I’m going to put flowers on a lot of soldiers’ graves. I happened to remember that you were once in the war, so I came for you. I didn’t mean to scare you. You were in the war,…

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Excerpt #3, from Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study, by Grenville Kleiser

…You can not say that You do not pretend that You have the authority of You know as well as I do You may object at once, and say You may object that You may point, if you will, to You may search the history of You tell me that You will say that PARAGRAPHS FROM NOTABLE SPEECHES Let me here pause once more to ask whether the book in its genuine state, as far as we have advanced in it, makes the same impression on your minds now as when it was first read to you in detached passages; and whether, if I were to tear off the first part of it, which I hold in my hand, and give it to you as an entire work, the first and last passages, which have been selected as libels on the Commons, would now appear to be so when blended with the interjacent parts? I do not ask your answer–I shall have it in your verdict. THOMAS LORD ERSKINE. From “Speech in Behalf of Stockdale.” * * * * *…

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Excerpt #4, from A Doll’s House : a play, by Henrik Ibsen

…happen, not for all the world. MRS LINDE. I will go at once and see Krogstad. NORA…. Don’t go to him; he will do you some harm. MRS LINDE. There was a time when he would gladly do anything for my sake. NORA…. He? MRS LINDE. Where does he live? NORA…. How should I know—? Yes [feeling in her pocket], here is his card. But the letter, the letter—! HELMER. [calls from his room, knocking at the door]. Nora! Nora [cries out anxiously]. Oh, what’s that? What do you want? HELMER. Don’t be so frightened. We are not coming in; you have locked the door. Are you trying on your dress? NORA….

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Excerpt #5, from The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties, by Richard Runciman Terry

…the rate of pay, or other grievances were treated with vigour and emphasis. Like the Britisher of to-day, he would put up with any hardship so long as he were permitted to grouse about it. The shantyman gave humorous expression to this grousing, which deprived it of the element of sulks. Steam let off in this way was a wholesome preventive of mutiny. The choruses were usually jingles, with no relevance save maintenance of the rhythm. One feature of the words may be noted. The sailor’s instinct for romance was so strong that in his choruses, at least, no matter how ‘hair-curling’ the solo might be, he always took the crude edge off the concrete and presented it as an abstraction if possible. For example, he knew perfectly well that one meaning of ‘to blow’ was to knock or kick. He knew that discipline in Yankee packets was maintained by corporeal methods, so much so that the Mates, to whom the function of knocking the ‘packet rats’ about was delegated, were termed first, second, and third ‘blowers,’ or strikers, and in the shanty he sang ‘Blow the man down.’ ‘Knock’ or ‘kick,’ as I have recently seen in a printed collection, was too crudely realistic for him. In like manner the humorous title, ‘Hog’s-eye,’ veiled the coarse intimacy of the term which it represented. And that is where, when…

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Excerpt #6, from Symbolic Logic, by Lewis Carroll

…14. No xy’ exist, &c. 15. Some xy exist, &c. 16. All y are x. 17. All x’ are y, and all y’ are x. 18. All x are y’, and all y are x’. 19. All x are y, and all y’ are x’. 20. All y are x’. Answers to § 4. AN4 1. No x’ are y’. 2. Some x’ are y’. 3. Some x are y’. 4. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.] 5. Some x’ are y’. 6. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.] 7. Some x are y’. 8. Some x’ are y’. 9. [No Concl. Fallacy of Unlike Eliminands with an Entity-Premiss.] 10. All x are y, and all y’ are x’. 11. [No Concl. Fallacy of Like Eliminands not asserted to exist.] 12. All y are x’. 13. No x’ are y….

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Excerpt #7, from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne

…think this a viler man than the other.] “Shall not conscience rise up and sting him on such occasions?——No; thank God there is no occasion, I pay every man his own;—I have no fornication to answer to my conscience;—no faithless vows or promises to make up;—I have debauched no man’s wife or child; thank God, I am not as other men, adulterers, unjust, or even as this libertine, who stands before me. “A third is crafty and designing in his nature. View his whole life;—’tis nothing but a cunning contexture “of dark arts and unequitable subterfuges, basely to defeat the true intent of all laws,——plain dealing and the safe enjoyment of our several properties.——You will see such a one working out a frame of little designs upon the ignorance and perplexities of the poor and needy man;—shall raise a fortune upon the inexperience of a youth, or the unsuspecting temper of his friend, who would have trusted him with his life. “When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black account, and state it over again with his conscience—CONSCIENCE looks into the STATUTES AT LARGE;—finds no express law broken by what he has done;—perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels incurred;—sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his…

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Excerpt #8, from The philosophy of biology, by James Johnstone

…of the animals belonging to all other phyla. The Protozoa, which for the present we regard as animals, are organisms the bodies of which consist of single cells. These cells may become aggregated into colonies, but they may as well exist apart from each other. They may be enclosed in limy, siliceous, or cellulose skeletons or shells, or they may possess limy or siliceous spicules in their tissues–these parts are non-essential, and the schematic Protozoan is a cell containing a single nucleus, and capable of independent existence. The Porifera, and all the other phyla, include organisms the bodies of which are made up of aggregates of cells. In the Porifera the cells, which are specially modified in structure, are arranged to form the internal walls of a “sponge-work” the cavities of which open to the outside by series of pores through which water is circulated. The bodies of the Cœlenterates are typically sacs formed by a double wall of cells–endoderm and ectoderm. This sac opens to the exterior by a single opening, or mouth, surrounded by a circlet of tentacles, and its cavity is the only one contained in the body of the animal. The Platyhelminth worms are animals the bodies of which are also composed of ectodermal and endodermal tissues, between which is intercalated another mesodermal tissue. They have a single digestive sac or alimentary canal opening to the exterior by means of a mouth only; and…

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Excerpt #9, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain

…I couldn’t stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the question. So I asked time to consider. The king said: “How long–ah, how long, good sir? Be merciful; look, it groweth darker, moment by moment. Prithee how long?” “Not long. Half an hour–maybe an hour.” There were a thousand pathetic protests, but I couldn’t shorten up any, for I couldn’t remember how long a total eclipse lasts. I was in a puzzled condition, anyway, and wanted to think. Something was wrong about that eclipse, and the fact was very unsettling. If this wasn’t the one I was after, how was I to tell whether this was the sixth century, or nothing but a dream? Dear me, if I could only prove it was the latter! Here was a glad new hope. If the boy was right about the date, and this was surely the 20th, it wasn’t the sixth century. I reached for the monk’s sleeve, in considerable excitement, and asked him what day of the month it was. Hang him, he said it was the twenty-first! It made me turn cold to hear him. I begged him not to make any mistake about it; but he was sure; he knew it was the 21st. So, that feather-headed boy had botched things again! The time of the day was right for the eclipse; I had seen that for myself, in the beginning, by the dial that was near by. Yes, I was in King Arthur’s court,…

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Excerpt #10, from Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post, by Thomas Rainey

…Great Britain, and see the gradual, unfaltering progress that she has made from year to year, since 1833; increasing the mail facilities and the sums paid for them by constant accretion based on system, rather than by any spasmodic legislation, or the ruling caprices of the moment. These improvements have not come all in a mass, or in any one year. Neither have they been abandoned at times of financial embarrassment, or commercial depression. At such periods they have been as regularly fostered as in the times of the most flush prosperity; and have ever been properly considered one of the prime agents and necessities for restoring commerce to its normal condition and a safe equilibrium. The transmarine service, which cost but £583,793, or $2,918,965, per annum until 1850,[G] now costs £1,062,797, or $5,333,985; within a fraction of double the sum. While the increase has not been slow, it has been steady and systematic, just as it was necessary to meet the wants of British commerce throughout the world. The language of the Hon. Senator Rusk on this subject, in his Report made to the Senate, Sep. 18th, 1850, found in Senate Ex. Doc. No. 50, 1st Session of 32d Congress, in Special Rep. Secretary of the Navy, 1852, is forcible and worthy of remembrance. He says: [G] See Second Report, Steam Communication with India, 1851. Appendix,…

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Excerpt #11, from Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde

…hair, and the memory of two childish lips bending down to kiss his hand as he stepped into his carriage. Later on had followed the marriage, hastily performed at Burgos, a small town on the frontier between the two countries, and the grand public entry into Madrid with the customary celebration of high mass at the Church of La Atocha, and a more than usually solemn auto-da-fe, in which nearly three hundred heretics, amongst whom were many Englishmen, had been delivered over to the secular arm to be burned. Certainly he had loved her madly, and to the ruin, many thought, of his country, then at war with England for the possession of the empire of the New World. He had hardly ever permitted her to be out of his sight; for her, he had forgotten, or seemed to have forgotten, all grave affairs of State; and, with that terrible blindness that passion brings upon its servants, he had failed to notice that the elaborate ceremonies by which he sought to please her did but aggravate the strange malady from which she suffered. When she died he was, for a time, like one bereft of reason. Indeed, there is no doubt but that he would have formally abdicated and retired to the great Trappist monastery at Granada, of which he was already titular Prior, had he not been afraid to leave the little Infanta at the mercy of his brother, whose cruelty, even in Spain, was notorious, and who was suspected by many of having caused the Queen’s…

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Excerpt #12, from Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, March 1899, by Various

…purposes identical with the Alpine type of western Europe. In their accentuated brachycephaly, their European facial features, their abundance of wavy hair and beard, and finally in their intermediate color of hair and eyes,[23] these latter peoples in the Pamir resemble their European prototypes, or perhaps we had better say, congeners. So close is this affiliation that the occurrence of this type in western Asia is the keystone in any argument for the Asiatic origin of the Alpine race of Europe. The significance of it for us in this connection is that it explains the European affinity of many of the Turkoman tribes, who are more strongly European than Mongol in their resemblances. It is highly important, we affirm, to fix this in mind, for the prevalent opinion seems to be that the Turks in Europe have departed widely from their ancestral Asiatic type, because of their present lack of Mongol characteristics, such as almond eyes, lank black hair, flat noses, and high cheek bones. [Illustration: NOMAD IVERVEK. Lycia, Asia Minor. TURK. Lycia, Asia Minor. TURK. Lycia, Asia Minor. TURKS.] Either the Osmanli Turks were never Mongols, or they have lost every trace of it by intermixture. Our portraits on the opposite page give…

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