Topaz Topaz is a hard, transparent mineral. It is a compound of aluminum, silica, and fluorine. Gem topaz is valuable. Jewelers call this variety of the stone precious topaz. The best-known precious topaz gems range in color from rich yellow to light...
Icebergs Icebergs are among natures most spectacular creations, and yet most people have never seen one. A vague air of mystery envelops them. They come into being ----- somewhere ------in faraway, frigid waters, amid thunderous noise and splashing t...
Plate Tectonics and Sea-floor Spreading The theory of plate tectonics describes the motions of the lithosphere, the comparatively rigid outer layer of the Earth that includes all the crust and part of the underlying mantle. The lithosphere(n.[地]岩石...
Oil Refining An important new industry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war. Crude oil, or petroleum a dark, thick ooze from the earth had been known for hundreds of years, but little use had ever been made of it. In the 1850s Samuel M. Kier, a ma...
Raising Oysters In the oysters were raised in much the same way as dirt farmers raised tomatoes- by transplanting them. First, farmers selected the oyster bed, cleared the bottom of old shells and other debris, then scattered clean shells about. Next...
Plankton Scattered through the seas of the world are billions of tons of small plants and animals called plankton. Most of these plants and animals are too small for the human eye to see. They drift about lazily with the currents, providing a basic f...
Botany Botany, the study of plants, occupies a peculiar position in the history of human knowledge. For many thousands of years it was the one field of awareness about which humans had anything more than the vaguest of insights. It is impossible to k...
British Columbia British Columbia is the third largest Canadian provinces, both in area and population. It is nearly 1.5 times as large as Texas, and extends 800 miles(1,280km) north from the United States border. It includes Canadas entire west coas...
The origin of Refrigerators By the mid-nineteenth century, the term icebox had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities....
Telecommuting Telecommuting-- substituting the computer for the trip to the job ----has been hailed as a solution to all kinds of problems related to office work. For workers it promises freedom from the office, less time wasted in traffic, and help...
Changing Roles of Public Education One of the most important social developments that helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's on the schools. In the 1920'...
Scientific Theories In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good example of this is...
International Business and Cross-cultural Communication The increase in international business and in foreign investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, howe...
Movie Music Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as silent, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded as an indispensable accompaniment; when the Lumiere...
Ford Although Henry Fords name is closely associated with the concept of mass production, he should receive equal credit for introducing labor practices as early as 1913 that would be considered advanced even by todays standards. Safety measures were...
