Part 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Words, letters and phrases printed in boldface or italics in the source document have been transcribed between =equal signs= and underscores respectively. Small capitals have been transcribed as ALL CAPITALS. Phrases between ~tildes~ represent side notes. ^o stands for a superscript o.

More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.

THE BOOK OF WONDERS

This is a picture of a section of one of the world’s greatest tunnels, showing how man has learned to construct great tubes of steel beneath the surface of the water and land, in which to run the swiftly moving trains which carry him rapidly from place to place.]

THE BOOK OF WONDERS

GIVES PLAIN AND SIMPLE ANSWERS TO THE THOUSANDS OF EVERYDAY QUESTIONS THAT ARE ASKED AND WHICH ALL SHOULD BE ABLE TO, BUT CANNOT ANSWER

FULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH HUNDREDS OF EDUCATIONAL PICTURES WHICH STIMULATE THE MIND AND GIVE A BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF THE

WONDERS OF NATURE and the WONDERS PRODUCED BY MAN

Edited and Arranged by RUDOLPH J. BODMER

Fully Indexed

1915 PRESBREY SYNDICATE, INC. 456 Fourth Avenue NEW YORK

Copyright, 1914 BY PRESBREY SYNDICATE, Inc.

Introduction

No truly great book needs an explanation of its aim and purpose. A great book just grows, as has this Book of Wonders.

It began with the attempt of a father to answer the natural questions of the active mind of a growing boy. It developed into a nightly search for plain, understandable answers to such questions as “What makes it night?” “Where does the wind begin?” “Why is the sky blue?” “Why does it hurt when I cut my finger?” “Why doesn’t it hurt when I cut my hair?” “Why does wood float?” “Why does iron sink?” “Why doesn’t an iron ship sink?” on through the maze of thousands of puzzling questions which occur to the child’s mind. It has grown until the answers to the mere questions cover practically the entire range of every-day knowledge, and has been arranged in such a form that any child may now find the answer to his own inquiries.

As the mind of the child matures, the questions naturally drift toward the things which the genius of man has provided for his comfort and pleasure. We have become so accustomed to the use and benefits of these wonders produced by man that we generally leave out of our books the stories of our great industries, and yet the mind of the child wonders and inquires about them. We have so long worn clothes made of wool or cotton, that we have forgotten the wonder there is in making a bolt of cloth. Every industry has a fascinating story equal to that of the silkworm, which moves its head sixty-five times a minute while spinning his thousand yards of silk.

Can you tell What happens when we telephone? How a telegram gets there? What makes an automobile go? How man learned to tell time? How a moving-picture is made? How a camera takes a picture? How rope is made? How the light gets into the electric bulb? How glass is made? How the music gets into the piano? and hundreds of others that embrace the captivating tales of how man has made use of the wonders of nature and turned them to his advantage and comfort? The Book of Wonders does this with illuminating pictures which stimulate the mind and give a bird’s-eye view of each subject step by step.

Where shall such a book begin? Shall it begin with the Story of How Man Learned to Light a Fire--he could not cook his food, see at night, or keep warm without a fire; or should it begin with How Man Learned to Shoot--he could not protect himself against the beasts of the forest, and, therefore, could not move about, till the soil or obtain food to cook until he knew how to shoot or destroy.

What was the vital thing for man to know before he could really become civilized? Some means, of course, by which the things he learned--the knowledge he had acquired--could be handed down to those who came after him so that they might go on with the intelligence handed down to them. This required some means of recording his knowledge. Man had to learn to write. Without writing there could be no Book of Wonders, and the book, then, begins naturally with the Story of Mow Man Learned to Write.

THE EDITOR.

How Man Learned to Write

It is a long time between the day of the cave-dwellers, with their instruments of chipped stone, and the present day of the pen. Yet wide apart as are these points of time, the trend of development can with but few obstacles be traced.

The story of the pen is a natural sequence of ideas between the first piece of rock scratched upon rock by prehistoric man, and the bit of metal which now so smoothly records our thoughts.

There was a time in the unwritten history of man when necessity prompted the invention of weapons, and the minds of these primitive men were concentrated upon this point. But the arts of war did not take up their entire time; some time must have been given to other pursuits. As the mind developed, and as an aid to memory, we find them carving, engraving, incising upon the rocks their hieroglyphics, which took the form of figures of men, habitations, weapons, and the animals of their period.

How Did Writing First Come About?

An apparently difficult question to answer, since without writing there can be no record of its origin, and without records no facts; yet the deduction is so clear that the answer is simple. Somewhere far, far back in the dawn of the world, back in the beginning of human history, in the epoch which we have now named the Quaternary Period, man lived in a dense wilderness surrounded by the wildest and most ferocious beasts. His home was a cave, exposed to the dangers incidental to that time and his surroundings, and he was of necessity compelled to look about for means of defense. With this idea in mind, he found that by striking one stone against another he knocked off chips, which chips could be used as arrow-heads, spears and axes. Following along these lines he discovered that by rubbing one of these chips against another there was left a mark, which was the first imitation of writing; that the sharper the edge of the chip, the deeper was the scratch, and consequently the more distinct the mark.

THE FIRST IMITATION OF WRITING]