Chapter 7 One summer night, a few months after my marriage, I was seated by my own hearth smoking a last pipe and nodding over a novel, for my day’s work had been an exhausting one. My wife had already gone upstairs, and the sound of the locking of the hall door some time before […]
Chapter 6 It was some time before the health of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes recovered from the strain caused by his immense exertions in the spring of ’87. The whole question of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and of the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis are too recent in the minds of the public, and are
Chapter 5 An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of
Chapter 4 “I have some papers here,” said my friend Sherlock Holmes as we sat one winter’s night on either side of the fire, “which I really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the documents in the extraordinary case of the Gloria Scott, and this is the
Chapter 3 Shortly after my marriage I had bought a connection in the Paddington district. Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus’s dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it. The public
Chapter 2 [In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases in which my companion’s singular gifts have made us the listeners to, and eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this not so much for the
Chapter 1 “I am afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go,” said Holmes as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning.“Go! Where to?”“To Dartmoor; to King’s Pyland.”I was not surprised. Indeed, my only wonder was that he had not already been mixed up in this extraordinary case, which was the one topic
Aberrant – Forms or groups of animals or plants which deviate in important characters from their nearest allies, so as not to be easily included in the same group with them, are said to be aberrant.Aberration (in Optics) – In the refraction of light by a convex lens the rays passing through different parts of
GLOSSARY OF THE PRINCIPAL SCIENTIFIC TERMS USED IN THE PRESENT VOLUME Read More »
I will here give a brief sketch of the progress of opinion on the Origin of Species. Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand, have believed that species
CHAPTER XV Recapitulation of the objections to the theory of Natural Selection – Recapitulation of the general and special circumstances in its favour – Causes of the general belief in the immutability of species – How far the theory of Natural Selection may be extended – Effects of its adoption on the study of Natural
CHAPTER XIV Classification, groups subordinate to groups – Natural system – Rules and difficulties in classification, explained on the theory of descent with modification – Classification of varieties – Descent always used in classification – Analogical or adaptive characters – Affinities, general, complex, and radiating – Extinction separates and defines groups – Morphology, between members
MUTUAL AFFINITIES OF ORGANIC BEINGS: MORPHOLOGY–EMBRYOLOGY–RUDIMENTARY ORGANS Read More »
CHAPTER XIII Distribution of fresh-water productions – On the inhabitants of oceanic islands – Absence of batrachians and of terrestrial mammals – On the relation of the inhabitants of islands to those of the nearest mainland – On colonisation from the nearest source with subsequent modification – Summary of the last and present chapter. Fresh-water
CHAPTER XII Present distribution cannot be accounted for by differences in physical conditions – Importance of barriers – Affinity of the productions of the same continent – Centres of creation – Means of dispersal, by changes of climate and of the level of the land, and by occasional means – Dispersal during the Glacial period*
CHAPTER XI On the slow and successive appearance of new species – On their different rates of change – Species once lost do not reappear – Groups of species follow the same general rules in their appearance and disappearance as do single species – On extinction – On simultaneous changes in the forms of life
CHAPTER X On the absence of intermediate varieties at the present day – On the nature of extinct intermediate varieties; on their number – On the lapse of time, as inferred from the rate of denudation and of deposition – On the lapse of time as estimated by years – On the poorness of our