Audio Books

San Francisco Before And After The Earthquake

William Henry Irwin
As all but Martians know (and who knows, perhaps even they), the city of San Francisco, California, was destroyed by massive earthquake and unquenchable fire in April, 1906. Will Irwin was a sometime San Franciscan who was then living in New York. He wrote a piece for the newspaper The Sun on April 21st, remembering and describing he city that was no more. He called it The City That Was. Four years later he returned to San Francisco and, amazed at the rebuilding, wrote a second piece for The San Francisco Call which he entitled The City That Is. The first endeavor became famous and was frequently reprinted; it made the reputation of Irwin as a reporter.

Edison, His Life and Inventions

Dyer, Frank Lewis
A detailed biography of Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of such things as the telephone, the microphone, the electric motor, the storage battery, and the electric light. In the words of the authors, "It is designed in these pages to bring the reader face to face with Edison; to glance at an interesting childhood and a youthful period marked by a capacity for doing things, and by an insatiable thirst for knowledge; then to accompany him into the great creative stretch of forty years, during which he has done so much. This book shows him plunged deeply into work for which he has always had an incredible capacity, reveals the exercise of his unsurpassed inventive ability, his keen reasoning powers, his tenacious memory, his fertility of resource; follows him through a series of innumerable experiments, conducted methodically, reaching out like rays of search-light into all the regions of science and nature, and finally exhibits him emerging triumphantly from countless difficulties bearing with him in new arts the fruits of victorious struggle." (written by Justin Barrett, with authors' quote taken from the work itself)

Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters, The

Marshall, Logan
This is a detailed and accurate account of the most
awful marine disaster in history, constructed from the real facts as obtained from those on board who survived.

Early History of the Airplane, The

Wright, Orville
The Brothers Orville (1871 - 1948) and Wilbur (1867 – 1912) Wright made the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air flight, on 17th December 1903. They were not the first to build and fly aircraft, but they invented the controls that were necessary for a pilot to steer the aircraft, which made fixed wing powered flight possible. The Early History of the Airplane consists of three short essays about the beginnings of human flight. The second essay retells the first flight: "This flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started."

Marvels of Modern Science

Paul Severing
The purpose of this little book is to give a general idea of a few of the great achievements of our time. For instance, the flying machine is engaging the attention of the old, the young and the middle-aged, and soon the whole world will be on the wing. Radium, "the revealer," is opening the door to possibilities almost beyond human conception. Wireless Telegraphy is crossing thousands of miles of space with invisible feet and making the nations of the earth as one. 'Tis the same with the other subjects,—one and all are of vital, human interest, and are extremely attractive on account of their importance in the civilization of today. Mighty, sublime, wonderful, as have been the achievements of past science, as yet we are but on the verge of the continents of discovery. Just as our conceptions of many things have been revolutionized in the past, those which we hold to-day of the cosmic processes may have to be remodeled in the future. Science is ever on the march and what is new to-day will be old to-morrow. We cannot go back, we must go forward, and although we can never reach finality in aught, we can improve on the past to enrich the future. (From the Introduction)

Story of the Pony Express, The

Bradley, Glenn D.
The Story of the Pony Express offers an in depth account behind the need for a mail route to connect the eastern U.S. with the rapidly populating west coast following the gold rush of California, the springing up of lumber camps, and all incidental needs arising from the settling of the western frontier. Here we learn of the inception of the Pony Express, its formation, successes, failures, facts, statistics, combined with many anecdotes and names of the people who were an integral part of this incredible entity which lasted but less than two years, yet was instrumental in the successful settlement of two thirds of the land mass comprising the expanding country.

Twentieth Century Inventions: A Forecast

Sutherland, George
This work from 1901 predicts what technological developments will manifest in the twentieth century. The author, a technical journalist, presents ideas for inventions and new developments in the areas of power, transportation, agriculture, mining, domestic applications, electronic devices, warfare, music, art, and news. Many have come to pass. All of them provide an interesting look into how the next century was imagined and what challenges were anticipated for the progress of society.
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Careers of Danger and Daring

Moffett, Cleveland
In this volume of adventure the author depicts the lives of certain humble modern heroes whose unconscious courage ordinarily goes unnoticed. Mr. Moffett
has chosen unusual and picturesque careers, and has offered dramatic scenes from the lives of the steeple climber, the diver, the balloonist,the pilot, the bridge builder, the fireman, the aerial acrobat, the wild animal trainer, the dynamite worker and lastly the locomotive driver.

Inventions Of The Great War

Alexander Russell Bond
“… this war was not one of mere destruction. It set men to thinking as they had never thought before. It intensified their inventive faculties, and as a result, the world is richer in many ways. Lessons of thrift and economy have been taught us. Manufacturers have learned the value of standardization. The business man has gained an appreciation of scientific research. The whole story is too big to be contained within the covers of a single book, but I have selected the more important and interesting inventions and have endeavored to describe them in simple language for the benefit of the reader who is not technically trained.” Bond was the sometime editor of Scientific American magazine.( Book Preface, David Wales)

Chronicles of Canada Volume 31 - All Afloat: A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways

William Wood
No exhaustive Canadian 'water history' can possibly be attempted here. That would require a series of its own. But at least a first attempt will be made to give some general idea of what such a history would contain in fuller detail: of the kayaks and canoes the Eskimos and Indians used before the white man came, and use today; of the small craft moved by oar and sail that slowly displaced those moved only by the paddle; of the sailing vessels proper, and how they plied along Canadian waterways, and on all the Seven Seas; of the steamers, which shed so much forgotten lustre on Canadian enterprise; of the teeming fisheries which the far-seeing Lord Bacon rightly thought 'richer treasures than the mines of Mexico and of Peru'; of the Dominion's trade and government relations with nations that 'have their business in great waters'; and, finally, of that guardian Navy, without whose freely given care the 'water history' of Canada could never have been made at all.

Story of Books, The

Rawlings, Gertrude Burford
Rawlings follows the development of printing from the origins of writing to modern printing. Some of the earliest records are ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman recordings on papyrus and wax tablets. However, Rawlings acknowledges the sparse nature of this first fragile evidence, and limits speculation.
Later, libraries of religious books grew in Europe, where monks copied individual books in monasteries. The "block printing" technique began with illustrations carved in wood blocks, while the text needed to be written by hand. Eventually, entire pages were printed as combinations of illustrations with text. The Biblia Pauperum, or “Bible of the Poor,” demonstrates this first time saving method.
Later chapters focus on printing developing as an industry, especially after the invention of movable type. Two inventors are contested as the first inventor, Johann Gutenberg of Mentz in Germany, and Laurenz Coster of Haarlem in Holland. Rawlings describes the evidence for each side, along with stories and legends that grow around their names.
Since many of the medieval books were meant to be admired as art by the illiterate majority and read only by an educated minority, copiers spent much time decorating manuscripts. Also, these highly decorated volumes needed to be protected. Here, Rawlings describes the techniques for binding and beautifying books. Arriving closer to the present day, Rawlings describes a few modern printing techniques that bring mass produced and cheap books to the now literate public.

My Life and Work

Henry Ford
Henry Ford profiles the events that shaped his personal philosophy, and the challenges he overcame on the road to founding the Ford Motor Company. Throughout his memoir, he stresses the importance of tangible service and physical production over relative value as judged by profits and money. He measures the worth of a business or government by the service it provides to all, not the profits in dollars it accumulates. He also makes the point that only service can provide for human needs, as opposed to laws or rules which can only prohibit specific actions and do not provide for the necessaries of life. Ford applies his reasoning to the lending system, transportation industry, international trade and interactions between labor and management. For each, he proposes solutions that maximize service and provide goods at the lowest cost and highest quality. He analyzes from a purely material viewpoint, going as far as to argue that the need for a good feeling in work environments may reflect a character flaw or weakness. However, his unflinching focus on the ultimate material products and necessities of life provide clever insights in how he created an efficient and flexible system for providing reliable transportation for the average person.

Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting

Eugene Edward Hall
This instruction manual contains complete directions for making and fitting new staffs for watches from raw material. The author refers to several illustrations throughout the text. These can be seen at the Online text in the Links section on this page. (Bev J. Stevens)

Story of the Atlantic Cable

Sir Charles Bright
The electric telegraph, together with the railway-train and the steamship, constituted the three most conspicuous features of late 19th century civilization. Indeed, it may be truly said that the harnessing electricity to the service of man for human communication has effected a change in political, commercial, and social relations, even more complete than that wrought by steam locomotion. This is the story of how the electric telegraph cable was laid across the floor of the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland.

Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 240 Contributions From the Museum of History and Technology Papers 34-44 on Science and Technology

Various
Part of the scholarly and scientific publications of the United States National Museum series: United States National Museum Bulletin.

In these series, the Museum publishes original articles and monographs dealing with the collections and work of its constituent museums—The Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History and Technology. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.

Since 1959, shorter papers relating to the collections and research of that Museum have been gathered in Bulletins titled “Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology,”.

The present collection of Contributions, Papers 34-44, comprises Bulletin 240.

--The 1893 Duryea automobile in the Museum of History and Technology, by Don H. Berkebile
--The Borghesi astronomical clock in the Museum of History and Technology, by Silvio A. Bedini
--The engineering contributions of Wendel Bollman, by Robert M. Vogel
--Screw-thread cutting by the master-screw method since 1480, by Edwin A. Battison
--The earliest electromagnetic instruments, by Robert A. Chipman
--Fulton's "steam battery" blockship and catamaran, by Howard I. Chapelle
--History of phosphorus, by Eduard Farber
--Tunnel engineering, a museum treatment, by Robert M. Vogel
--The "Pioneer": light passenger locomotive of 1851 in the Museum of History and Technology, by John H. White
--History of the Division of Medical Sciences, by Sami Hamarneh
--Development of gravity pendulums in the 19th century, by Victor F. Lenzen and Robert P. Multhauf.

Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

United States Army Corps of Engineers
This is the official report, published nearly 11 months after the first and only atomic bombings in history (to date), of a group of military physicians and engineers who accompanied the initial contingent of U.S. soldiers into the destroyed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The report presents a clinical description of the devastation, loss of life and continued suffering of the survivors that resulted from the world's first and only atomic bombings, to date. The appendix is an eyewitness account, contrasting vividly with the dispassionate sang-froid of the report itself, written by a German Jesuit priest who survived the blast at Hiroshima, and whose order assisted in rescue efforts following the catastrophic attack. This recording was completed on the 63rd anniversary of the events.

George and Robert Stephenson

Samuel Smiles
George Stephenson did not invent the steam engine, that was due to Newcomen and later to James Watt. He did not invent the steam locomotive, that was due to a number of people including Cugnot, Trevithick and others. He did not invent the Railway. Railways or tramways had been in use for two hundred years before Stephenson.

The reason why Stephenson was known as ‘The father of the steam locomotive’ was that he took a primitive, unreliable and wholly uneconomic device and turning it into an efficient machine not very different to those which ran until fifty or so years ago, married it with the iron rail and alone, and against considerable opposition,began, via the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and then the London and Birmingham Railway, the development of steam railways in England and the world.

George Stephenson began life in 1781 in the worst and poorest of all circumstances, he did not learn to read until he was twenty years old, but he, together with his son Robert, became the foremost engineers in the railway world.

If, in the middle years of the nineteenth century you wanted to build a railway, then, if you wanted it big bold and imaginative you might go to Mr. Brunel. If you wanted it to pay however, you would go to the Sephensons.

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

Charles Babbage
Some men write their lives to save themselves from ennui, careless of the amount they inflict on their readers. Others write their personal history, lest some kind friend should survive them, and, in showing off his own talent, unwittingly show them up. Others, again, write their own life from a different motive—from fear that the vampires of literature might make it their prey. I have frequently had applications to write my life, both from my countrymen and from foreigners. Some caterers for the public offered to pay me for it. Others required that I should pay them for its insertion; others offered to insert it without charge. One proposed to give me a quarter of a column gratis, and as many additional lines of eloge as I chose to write and pay for at ten-pence per line. To many of these I sent a list of my works, with the remark that they formed the best life of an author; but nobody cared to insert them. I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as I have strength and means to do better work. The remarkable circumstances attending those Calculating Machines, on which I have spent so large a portion of my life, make me wish to place on record some account of their past history. As, however, such a work would be utterly uninteresting to the greater part of my countrymen, I thought it might be rendered less unpalatable by relating some of my experience amongst various classes of society, widely differing from each other, in which I have occasionally mixed. This volume does not aspire to the name of an autobiography. It relates a variety of isolated circumstances in which I have taken part—some of them arranged in the order of time, and others grouped together in separate chapters, from similarity of subject. The selection has been made in some cases from the importance of the matter. In others, from the celebrity of the persons concerned ; whilst several of them furnish interesting illustrations of human character.

Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy

Anonymous
A collection of true stories of the high seas, from the nineteenth century. Shipwrecks, mutiny, life and death decision-making -- all far from home, while pitting themselves against the elements. The romance of the seafaring life is depicted in its brutal reality.

Umbrellas and Their History

William Sangster
A whimsically serious look at the umbrella and society.

Night The Mountain Fell; The Story Of The Montana-Yellowstone Earthquake

Edmund Christopherson
A severe earthquake, centered in the vacation area of West Yellowstone, Montana, shook the ground and its inhabitants and visitors on August 17, 1959, at 11.37 pm. A mountainside fell, a lake formed, roads and houses disappeared, people were trapped, people died. The author of this narrative went to the area the day after the quake, took first-hand stories of the catastrophe, researched in the following months, and wrote this account within a year of the shaking. The printed source has many informative photographs.

How I Filmed the War

Malins, Geoffrey H.
An account of World War I and the experience of filming it by an early cinematographer (and, after the war, successful director) who was there.

Romance of Modern Invention

Archibald Williams
This is a volume of exploration into the newest inventions of the turn of the previous century. Journalist Archibald Williams walks the reader through diverse inventions which were changing the world at just that point in time.

Time Telling Through the Ages

Harry Chase Brearley
A history of timekeeping from the stone age through to American mass production, covering timepieces from the sundial and water clock through the key inventions driving advances in the accuracy of clocks and watches in both Europe and America. The book was conceived and sponsored by the Ingersoll Family as a celebration of their then 25 years of watchmaking.

How It Flies or, Conquest of the Air

Richard Ferris
In these pages, by means of simple language and suitable pictures, the author has told the story of the Ships of the Air. He has explained the laws of their flight; sketched their development to the present day; shown how to build the flying machine and the balloon, and how to operate them; recounted what man has done, and what he hopes to do with their aid. In a word, all the essential facts that enter into the Conquest of the Air have been gathered into orderly form, and are here presented to the public.We who live to-day have witnessed man’s great achievement; we have seen his dream of ages come true. Man has learned to fly!The air which surrounds us, so intangible and so commonplace that it seldom arrests our attention, is in reality a vast, unexplored ocean, fraught with future possibilities. Even now, the pioneers of a 8countless fleet are hovering above us in the sky, while steadily, surely these wonderful possibilities are unfolded.

Marvels of Scientific Invention

Thomas W. Corbin
This is a chronicle of the 19 most interesting inventions of the early 20th century. Some of the inventions are still in use and of considerable impact today, while others are examples of the strong belief in progress prevalent at the time would probably be frowned upon today. In this way, the author's account of how ice was made at the time will still be very interesting for readers today, but an account of how dynamite was going to be used in farming may be seen as humorous to the contemporary reader. The subjects are as varied as science herself is, and any reader and listener should find a subject matching his or her own taste.

Hurricane Hunters

Ivan Ray Tannehill
This 1955 book by an acknowledged authority is an absorbing account of meteorology before the advent of weather satellites. “This is the lively account of the hair-raising experiences of the men who have probed by sea and air into the inner mysteries of the world’s most terrible storms…. Here is the first intimate revelation of what the human eye and the most modern radars see in the violent regions of the tropical vortex. The descriptions of the activities of these valiant scouts of the storms are taken from personal interviews with military flyers and weathermen who have risked their lives in the furious blasts in all parts of the hurricane. The author has made a special study of hurricanes for over forty years. He has served with the Weather Bureau as chief of the marine division, chief of all forecasting and reporting and assistant chief of the Bureau, in charge of its technical operations.”

Little Masterpieces of Science - Invention and Discovery

George Iles
A collection of essays on various inventions and scientific discoveries, this volume of Little Masterpieces of Science from 1902 includes topics such as the discovery of electricity, the invention of the telegraph, the telephone, Roentgen rays, and other advances.

Baltimore Hats

William T. Brigham
It is not impossible that some useful information may be conveyed by this book. Should these pages prove of such service, their cost in labor is most cheerfully donated.

This volume is composed of a series of articles which appeared in a Trade Journal, covering a period of two years from 1887 to 1889. It must be accepted as but a brief history of an industry long identified with Baltimore.

Thanks are due the Librarian of the Maryland Historical Society and Mr. B. R. Sheriff for favors in lending rare and valuable old City directories; also to the many citizens who kindly aided and assisted in the search for needed information.

The Author. (from the Preface)

Invention And Discovery: Curious Facts And Characteristic Sketches

Unknown
"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 civilization."

Since there are no chapter or other divisions of these anecdotes, the reader has chosen to read entries for about thirty minutes per section. There is an index of topics in the printed book available on gutenberg.org. (From Book Introductory Note and David Wales)

Aeroplane in War

Claude Grahame-White
"Although it is still a crude machine—in view of the perfected apparatuswhich is the aim of thoughtful designers—the aeroplane has demonstrated,in a conclusive way, its value as an instrument of war."

Story of the Atlantic Telegraph, The

Field, Henry M.
Cyrus W. Field had a dream: to link the Old World of Britain and Europe to that of the New World of North America by a telegraph cable stretching across the great Atlantic Ocean. It took him thirteen years, a lot of money, and many men and ships and cable to make it happen. He wanted to bring the world together and make it a smaller place; to forge alliances and achieve peace. This is his story.

London (Ancient And Modern) From The Sanitary And Medical Point Of View

George Vivian Poore
This little book is an expansion of two addresses delivered in January, 1889. One deals with sanitary issues in London. The other deals with medical issues, mainly through the lives and careers of physicians. Though ancients are included, the main emphasis is upon the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries.

Chronicles of Canada Volume 32 - The Railway Builders: A Chronicle of Overland Highways

Oscar D. Skelton
When the pace of railroad construction slackened in 1914, Canada had achieved a remarkable position in the railway world. Only five other countries—the United States, Russia, Germany, India, and, by a small margin, France—possessed a greater mileage; and, relatively to population, none came anywhere near her. This is the story of how Canada became a country stitched together by rail.

Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad

William Francis Bailey
Story of the planning, construction, and early operating of the Trans-continental railroad. There is coverage of the early proposals that began as early as the late 1700's to follow the best route to the Pacific Ocean. 1819 saw proposals for steam propelled carriages to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In the early 1800's interest gained for creating a railroad connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Costs, construction, and operation are covered along with details on the Kansas Pacific Railway, the Denver Pacific Railroad, and the Central Pacific Railroad.

Masters of Space

Walter Kellogg Towers
This is the story of talking at a distance, of sending messages through space. It is the story of great men—Morse, Thomson, Bell, Marconi, and others—and how, with the aid of men like Field, Vail, Catty, Pupin, the scientist, and others in both the technical and commercial fields, they succeeded in flashing both messages and speech around the world, with wires and without wires. It is the story of how the thought of the world has been linked together by those modern wonders of science and of industry—the telegraph, the submarine cable, the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and, most recently, the wireless telephone. (From Preface)

Trips in the Life of a Locomotive Engineer

Henry Dawson
Henry Dawson has written several vignettes of railroad men from the days of steam locomotives. His goal is to show the reader that they are not just rough men, but are also brave and heroic men through descriptions of divers dangers encountered on the tracks.

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