The World's Encyclopedia of Wonders and Curiosities

Everything a Victorian found astonishing, gathered into one enormous volume — burning springs and buried cities, freaks of storm and flood, the habits of bees and the manners of nations, filed under headings like “Curiosities Respecting Man.”

Curiosities Respecting the Arts

23 pages in this part of Wonders and Curiosities.

Chap. Lxxii

Early Invention of several useful Arts - Automaton-Androides- Extraordinary Pieces of Clockwork-Heidelberg Clock- Strasburg…

Early Inventions

such antiquity as to place the inventors beyond the reach of tradition; while several have gradually crept into existence without an…

Early Inventions: England

A clock that strikes the hours was unknown in Europe till the end of the twelfth century. And hence the custom of employing men to proclaim…

Early Inventions: Cape

The discoveries of the Portuguese on the west coast of Africa, afford a remarkable instance of the slow progress of the arts. In the…

Early Inventions: Vaucanson

Thus, by an artificial disposition of these pegs in different parts of the cylinder, the statue was made, by the successive elevation of…

Curiosities Respecting the Arts

At every motion the wheels are heard; the image moves its head, and looks over every part of the chess-board. When it checks the queen, it…

Heidelberg Clock. -Strasburg Clock

a large pin, on the top of which is a small round box, to which a circular ornament , set with diamonds not larger than a sixpence, is…

Invention of Watches

tional to 1 and 12, is the square of twelve, and consequently it is the number of equal parts in which the altitude is to be distributed…

Uriosities Respecting the Arts

book "De Horol. Oscillat." was published; wherein he has not one word of this, though he has of several other contrivances in the same way…

Chap. Lxxiii

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING THE ARTS. - (Continued.) Telegraph-Spectacle of a Sea Fight at Rome-Wooden Eagle; and Iron Fly-Whitehead's…

Chap. Lxxiii: Chappe

Whether M. Chappe, who is said to have invented the telegraph first used by the French about the end of 1793, knew any thing of Amonton's…

Sea-Fight at Rome.-A Wooden Eagle, Etc

We submit to the reader the following account of a SIEC- TACLE OF A SEA FIGHT AT ROME. - Augustus, to divert his mind from fixing on his…

Hydraulic Birds - Boverick's Curiosities

HYDRAULIC BIRDS.-At Tibur, in Tivoli, near Rome, in the gardens of Hippolitus d'Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, there are the representations of…

Bunzlau Curiosities

and on the other, of all Europe: they are placed according to their respective geographical bearings. The names of the towns are written on…

Chap. Lxxiv

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING THE ARTS.-(Concluded) Burning Glasses-Ductility of Glass-Remarkable Ductility and Extensibility Extensibility of…

Burning Giasses

remains 5545 as the expression of its power. As the application of the second lens reduced the diameter of the focus to half an inch, the…

Remarkable Ductility and Extensibility of Gold

Gold is the most ductile, as well as the most malleable, of all metals. According to Cronstedt, one grain of it may be stretched out so as…

Remarkable Ductility and Extensibility of Gold: Needles

We must not forget to present to the reader some curious particulars respecting the manufacture of respecting the manufacture of…

Variety of Fashions in Shoes

The upper parts of these shoes, in Chaucer's time, were cut in imitation of a church window. The long-pointed shoes were called crackowes…

Variety of Fashions in Shoes: Japanese

The shoes or slippers of the Japanese, as we are informed by Professor Thunberg, are made of rice-straw, woven; but sometimes, for people…

The Great Bell of Moscow

THE largest bell in the world, is called in Russia the "Tzar Kolokol," or king of bells; from the metal of which at least thirty-six bells…

Bell of Moscow.-Man with. the Iron Mask

which is not entire. No one, I believe, has yet ascertained the size of the base; this would afford still greater dimensions than those we…

Chap. Lxxv

MAN WITH THE IRON MASK. - There was a remarkable personage, so denominated, who existed as a state prisoner in France during the latter…

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Wonders and Curiosities (1900) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.