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.

Training of a Forester

Gifford Pinchot
Written by a forester, this book looks at the definition of "forest", what the life of a forester entails, discusses the forest service both on the state and national levels, and the training required to be a forester. As a forester himself, and the chief of the US Forest Service, Pinchot was a foremost expert in this topic,and, based on his preface to the work, seems to expect this work to either encourage or dissuade young people from a life in forestry.

Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones

John Mastin
This is a good basic introduction to gemstones and their analysis. Admittedly a lot of the scientific tests have been superseded, but the basic properties never change. The first part of the book concentrates on physical properties of most common gems, then outlines the cutting process and ends with several chapters on each of the gemstone families. A useful little book if you are interested in gems.

Titan Of Chasms: The Grand Canyon Of Arizona

Charles A. Higgins
This is a 1906 collection of three essays by men famously associated with The Grand Canyon: Charles A. Higgins, John Wesley Powell, and Charles F. Lummis.

Meteorology; or Weather Explained

M'Pherson, J.G.
Weather Explained: Fog, clouds, rain, haze, thunder, cyclones, dew point and how to count dust motes are just a few of the 35 topics covered in short, easy to read and understand chapters in this book published in 1905.

Romance of Modern Geology

Edwin Sharpe Grew
From the series, The Library of Romance, this book introduces the reader to the modern geology of the 1909, with topics that include the building and shaping of the earth, the action of weather, rivers, seas and ice on the earth, earthquakes and volcanoes, and, of course, dinosaurs and other extinct animals.

Micrographia

Robert Hooke
Published in 1665, this is the first publication of the Royal Society and considered to be the first scientific best-seller. As opposed to the Latin of other publications of the time like Newton's 'Principia Mathematica', it was written in English to make it accessible to all. Robert Hooke uses the then fairly new microscope to cover many different subjects including insects, plants, organic material, and even the stars and moon, all fully illustrated by Hooke in detailed hand-drawn diagrams.

Principles of Geology

Charles Lyell
Principles of Geology: being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell, first published in 3 volumes in 1830–1833.

Lyell used geology throughout as a basis to strengthen his argument for Uniformitarianism. He used geological proof to determine that the Earth was older than 6,000 years, as had been previously contested. The book shows that the processes that are occurring in the present are the same processes that occurred in the past.

Madam How and Lady Why

Charles Kingsley
Did you ever wish you knew how to explain natural phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanoes to your children? Search no more, this book has all the answers (at least all the ones that were known in 1869) and gives them in a pedagogical way. Listed on the Ambleside homeschooling list.

Journals of Robert Falcon Scott; Volume 1 of 'Scott's Last Expedition' (Version 2)

Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Scott’s ill-fated journey to the Antarctic Pole in 1911 is part triumph, part tragedy – but also a mythic adventure story which has inspired books, articles, and films over the generations. As so often in such cases the ‘truth’ of the explorers’ experiences (and there were many important figures in the party besides Scott) is much more rich, varied, and fascinating than the boy scout stereotype. Few know for example how much time during the many months of the journey were spent in scientific researches which remain of huge value to this day. But what comes across most vividly in Scott’s fascinating and finally very moving diary account is the complexity of the man and his closest comrades who reached the Pole fatally too late (the Norwegian Amundsen has beaten them to it by many weeks), then died trekking home, facing tortuous weather conditions, dwindling food supplies, and that gnawing, bitter sense of defeat. Ironically Robert Falcon Scott is now far more famous than Amundsen: his triumph secured by history and by myth. For if Scott was finally an imperfect explorer, he was the perfect author of his own amazing tale. Scott’s account is introduced by Clements R. Markham, president of the Royal Geographical Society at the time of the expedition; and concluded by E.L. Atkinson, a member of Scott’s party and leader of the relief expedition which found the bodies of Scott and his comrades some months after their death in November 1912.

Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement

Alva Agee
This book is not a technical treatise and is designed only to point out the plain, every-day facts in the natural scheme of making and keeping soils productive. It is concerned with the crops, methods, and fertilizers that favor the soil. The viewpoint, all the time, is that of the practical man who wants cash compensation for the intelligent care he gives to his land...Experiment stations and practical farmers have developed a dependable science within recent years, and there is no jarring of observed facts when we get hold of the simple philosophy of it all.

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.

Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol 1

Edmond Halley
"The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence." (from its Mission Statement). As scientists have explored the world around them, observed and tried to explain natural phenomena, they have been invited to present papers to the Royal Society. Edmond Halley (of Halley's Comet fame) was an eminent member of the society and gathered together some of the most interesting papers of his day. Today, we may see errors in the logic or calculations, based on current knowledge, but these papers are unedited and as presented at the time and show how scientific knowledge was expanding in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries

Elements of Geology

William Harmon Norton
Geology is a science of such rapid growth that no apology is expected when from time to time a new text-book is added to those already in the field. The present work, however, is the outcome of the need of a text-book of very simple outline, in which causes and their consequences should be knit together as closely as possible,—a need long felt by the author in his teaching, and perhaps by other teachers also. The author has ventured, therefore, to depart from the common usage which subdivides geology into a number of departments,—dynamical, structural, physiographic, and historical,—and to treat in immediate connection with each geological process the land forms and the rock structures which it has produced. (from book preface)

Life of a Fossil Hunter

Charles Sternberg
Charles Sternberg was an American fossil collector and paleontologist. He was active in both fields from 1876 to 1928, and collected fossils for private collectors as well as for international museums. This book is part travelogue, part paleontology, and part historical narrative of life on the open prairie. In it, Sternberg tells of his early interest in fossil hunting as a boy, and scientific expeditions from his first in 1876 to one for the Munich Museum in 1901.

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.”

Text-book of Assaying

Cornelius Beringer
This is a formal but relaxed text covering assaying techniques for most of the substances which are mined. As the authors say: "At first our intention was to supply a description of those substances only which have a commercial value, but on consideration we have added short accounts of the rarer elements..."

The book's early chapters are wide-ranging, describing the general theory of assaying and a range of methods and reagents, with the later chapters describing analytical methods for different groups of metals and for some non-metallic substances. It includes many excellent illustrations of the scientific method, demonstrating the effects of changing the parameters of many of the assay techniques.

It was first published in 1889; this edition in 1904.

[The reader has omitted some mathematical examples, tables of data and descriptions of figures, where their inclusion would seem to over-complicate the text; and has attempted to describe many of the pieces of apparatus which are illustrated.]

Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants

Charles Darwin
A technical report of the experiments and observations performed on various species of twining, tendril-climbing, root-climbing, and leaf-climbing plants, with some review of past literature and an emphasis on taking measurements to allow the quantitative comparison of sensitivity and speed of reactions across different genera and species. Conclusions and hypotheses on the fitness advantages, progressive adaptations, and evolutionary relatedness of different species are included.

Prehistoric Men

Robert J. Braidwood
This little book, first published in 1948, is part of the Chicago Natural History Popular History series that explains difficult subjects in ways and terms we all can understand. It was published at a time in Anthropology when exciting things like carbon dating were first being used and refined. "Prehistory means the time before written history began. Actually, more than 99 per cent of man’s story is prehistory. Man is at least half a million years old, but he did not begin to write history (or to write anything) until about 5,000 years ago. The men who lived in prehistoric times left us no history books, but they did unintentionally leave a record of their presence and their way of life. This record is studied and interpreted by different kinds of scientists."

Rural Magazine and Literary Evening Fire-Side Vol 1 No 1

Various
This is the first issue of a monthly agricultural magazine for the year 1820. From the introduction: "A leading object of the Rural Magazine will be to furnish correct views of the science of Agriculture, and the various improvements which are daily made or suggested in it. For this purpose the best and most recent European works on the subject will be consulted, and selections made from the American newspapers that are devoted or friendly to the cause. The best information on the subject will thus be condensed in a form less unwieldy than a newspaper, and more popular than in scientific books. We also expect original papers from our agricultural friends, being confident that there is much in the farming of our neighbouring counties, well worthy of being widely known and imitated."

Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest

Edward Tyson Allen
Written by a forester, this book aims to educate people on the importance of maintaining forests and those events which pose a danger to forests. It looks at forests from multiple points of view, the public, lumbermen, and the farmer. Given the author's association with the forestry department in the Pacific Northwest, the book focuses primarily on that region; however, the information provided is universal with regards to forestry.

Discourses: Biological and Geological

Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist (comparative anatomist). He was the most effective supporter of Darwin's Theory of Evolution and had a strong interest in scientific education - in schools, universities, and for the general public . He has been described as "the premier advocate of science in the nineteenth century [for] the whole English-speaking world". This volume consists of popular lectures he gave on biology and geology and addresses he delivered on the same subjects to scientific bodies.

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