The Wonderful Century - The Age of New Ideas in Science and Invention

London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.. Good with No dust jacket as issued. 1903. Hardcover. Spine faded. Hinges broken with splits to gutters at endpapers. Previous owner's pencil signature on front endpaper. ; "New Edition / Revised and largely Re-written". xii, 527, [1] pages. Portrait frontispiece within the pagination. 107 in-text figures. Red cloth boards with blind-stamped floral pattern on spine and front board, black lettering on spine and front board. Page dimensions: 194 x 133mm. The chapter on photography includes descriptions and explanations of the Woodbury-Type, the Collotype, the Photogravure, and the Half-Tone Process. "The great range and value of the commonest and cheapest form of photographic reproduction - the process-plate - is well shown by the accompanying three specimens of ordinary book illustration [. . .] the facility for producing such pictures is now so great that we have presented to us in our books and periodicals the scenes of public and private life in every part of the world, enabling us to realise the manners and customs and the material surrounding of foreign people in a way that no earlier epoch as ever enjoyed." - pp. 127-9. "The present edition is, substantially, a new work. [. . .] The chapters on Locomotino by Land and by Sea have now been greatly extended and copiously illustrated. In Photography, I have added a new feature in a popular account of the methods by which artistic illustrations are produced, from the common process-plate to the beautiful photogravures and Woodbury-type prints. The chapter on Chemistry has been greatly extended, and a new one on Electricity has been added." - from the Preface by Alfred J. Wallace, dated 30th June 1903. Contents: Part I - Successes - Modes of Travelling; The Advance in Locomotion on the Ocean; Labour-Saving Machinery; The Conveyance of Thought; Fire and Light; New Applications of Light - Photography; Light: Its Nature and Properties; Physical Principles and their Applications; The Importance of Dust: A Source of Beauty and Essential to Life; Some of the Chief Problems and Discoveries of Chemistry; Electricity: The Science of the Century; Astronomy: The Solar System; The Sun's Nature and Constitution; The Stars; The Structure of the Heavens; Geology: The Glacial Epoch, and the Antiquity of Man; Evolution and Natural Selection; Popular Discoveries in Physiology; The Nineteenth Compared with Previous Centuries; Part II - Failures - The Neglect of Phrenology; The Opposition to Hypotism and Psychical Research; Militarism - The Curse of Civilisation; The Demon of Greed; The Plunder of the Earth - Conclusion; Appendix - The Remedy for Want in the Midst of Wealth; Index. .