Until the extraordinary affair at Sidmouth, the peculiar species _Haploteuthis ferox_ was known to science only generically, on the strength of a half-digested tentacle obtained near the Azores, and a decaying body pecked by birds and nibbled … Read the rest
One confidential evening, not three months ago, Lionel Wallace told me this story of the Door in the Wall. And at the time I thought that so far as he was concerned it was a true story.… Read the rest
It was on the first day of the New Year that the announcement was made, almost simultaneously from three observatories, that the motion of the planet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the … Read the rest
When Captain Gerilleau received instructions to take his new gunboat, the _Benjamin Constant,_ to Badama on the Batemo arm of the Guaramadema and there assist the inhabitants against a plague of ants, he suspected the authorities of … Read the rest
This again,’ said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, ‘is a preparation of the celebrated Bacillus of cholera – the cholera germ.’
The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently not accustomed … Read the rest
The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good … Read the rest
“It is sacred to the Chiefs,” said the lieutenant; “just as yellow silk, you know, is sacred to the Chinese Emperor.”
The Ethnologist did not answer. He hesitated. Then opening the topic abruptly, “What on earth is … Read the rest
The stakes offered in this affair consisted chiefly of diamonds and other personal bric-à-brac belonging to the newly married Lady Aveling. Lady Aveling, as the reader will remember, was the only daughter of Mrs Montague Pangs, the … Read the rest
As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her way downstairs with a brush and dust-pan. She used in the old days to sing hymn tunes, or the British national song for … Read the rest
The chief attendant of the three dynamos that buzzed and rattled at Camberwell, and kept the electric railway going, came out of Yorkshire, and his name was James Holroyd. He was a practical electrician, but fond of … Read the rest