The Ernest Glitch Chronicles
The Ernest Glitch Chronicles
A Novel by Roger Curry. Contains a Plethora of Victorian Anarchic Experimental Science


Tickle Smoke and the Graf Zeppelin
An airship plunging through a rain of liquid titanium tetrachloride


Violent Detonation of Potassium & Hydrofluoric Acid plus the 322 Faced Fluorite Crystal of Mr Phillips
Count the faces, don't breath the fumes


Ludwig Mond on Ammonia from Coal
Industrial Chemistry


Sulphur Mines In Sicily 1888
A rather dry monologue, but the description of "calcarone" is of interest


Dentist's Alarming Explosion - TACN Tetraammine Copper Nitrate
Plus the discovery of a naturally occurring high-explosive mineral - Tacnite




A Royal Electrostatic Discharge, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip & The Bishop of Durham
The Queen may have had to change her tweed underpants after the demo of a high voltage capacitor


Wollaston's Discovery of a Controversial Element - Palladium


The Preparation of Nitrogen Gas from Flesh
Lumps of meat produce azote


Laboratory Shed in 1970


CTR Wilson, of Cloud Chamber Fame, on Thunderstorms & Sprites 1924


The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off


Gallium Crystallising and Other Illustrations


LIPARI OBSIDIAN with Oriented CRISTOBALITE Spherulites


The Great Newton Aycliffe Tornado of 1995


W48 155-millimetre nuclear artillery shell




 




The STC 4021 Microphone - VIE: Visual Indicating Equipment of World War II


The Transducer Corporation "Bullet" Model TR-6 Microphone - a 1938 design classic


Flat Earthers; the Bedford Level Experiment of 1838


Apple and Biscuit Microphone for Acoustics Laboratories - the STC 4034


Tetanus Symptoms Ameliorated With Cannabis Enema


Full Text of William Armstrong's Address to the 1863 British Association for the Advancement of Science


Environmental Aspects of Autonomous Lawnmowers


Victorian 3D Printer
A computer controlled additive manufacturing machine was invented in 1857


A 1901 Dentists Nitrous Generator


Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy





The Artificial Goat
A Victorian water-powered autonomous lawnmower


Giant Levitating Lipstick - Britain Launches Prospero Satellite


Aldini Reanimates George Forster's Corpse 1803


Using a Blunderbuss against Frogs - Brave Captain Hornsby


St. Elmo's Fire, Gold and Minerals at Leadhills


Cigars de Joy - Hallucinogenic Cigarettes for Asthma Sufferers


Dangerous Thesis Work - 34 Milligrams of Radium Sulphate


Cornish Lithium 1864


Edison's Assistant Mr. Dally Becomes X-Ray Amputee


Display Display Software






Phossy Jaw - White Phosphorus Causes Match-Makers Leprosy


A Case of Poisoning with Hashish - 1856


Argus As 014 Pulse Jet - powered by coal-dust


Unearthing Fullerenes - Oak Ridge National Laboratory


When Crocoite was worth its weight in gold


Fullerenes Discovered in Victorian England
A letter from Ernest Glitch (son of Mad Judge Glitch) to Michael Faraday appears to note the crystallisation of C60 some 150 years before Kroto


Flesh Transducer


A Weapon of Mass Destruction in Victorian Times: The Coal-Dust Flame-Thrower
Horror weapon invented in Weardale by Glitch. Also in 1862, his assistant noted the depletion of U235 in pitchblende from Oklo, and suggested that a natural reactor could be the cause of the isotopic anomaly


19th Century Jet-Powered Flying Machine in Weardale
Powered manned Flight achieved long before the Wright Bros., using Multiple Valve-less Pulse Jets


The First Flight (part 2 of above)
part two of 19th Century Jet-Powered Flying Machine in Weardale, plus The Steam-Powered Rope-Engine - Mad Judge Glitch`s Power-Gallows - An account of the first test of this capital punishment machine







Gutta Percha - a natural thermoplastic


Glitch Constructs Hypersonic Gun
Upper Weardale was impacted by several projectiles in late 1857, in Glitch`s words, "Velocities approached 70,000 furlongs to the hour, Bishop"


Victorian Cyclotron
E. Glitch bombards diamonds with high energy particles to produce coloured 'fancy' stones. His equipment, mentioned in a letter to M. Faraday, pre-dates that of Lawrence by some 73 years


Victorian Liquid-Fuel Rocket Engine
An account of the use of hypergolic propellants and deLaval nozzles in 1856


Beagle 2 - A 19th Century Hybrid Coal / Liquid Nitrous Oxide Powered Rocket
Busty seam coal & laughing gas propels scientific probe into space, successfully launched 24th July 1863 from Weardale, returning 30th June 1908 over Siberia


Observation of Light Emission from Electrically Stressed Silicon Carbide CrystalsAn Early Light Emitting Diode


The Glitch Machine Gun
A fully automatic weapon 24 years before Hiram Maxim


The Glitch Sporting Bathyscaphe
Accounts of the use of this extreme depth marine hunting vessel


1858: First X-Ray?
Rupert Glitch photographs his own bones using tandem Cuthbertson electrical machines


The 1855 Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree
The front page from the April 1855 issue of "The Turf" refers to equestrian enhancement of a scientific nature





Lord Armstrong's Hydraulic Engines


Boxing day 1799. Humphry Davy Encloses his Head in a Box Full of Nitrous Oxide Gas
"Nothing Exists But Thoughts!" A quote from Davy, off his head on 57 liters of nitrous oxide, in an attempt "to produce excitement equal in duration and superior in intensity to that occasioned by high intoxication from opium or alcohol."



Michael Faraday & Micromercurialism


Michael Faraday


Plastic from Piss - Urea Formaldehyde


The Bottle of Felix Klein


Hermann Sprengel's Pump, 1865


Casein Formaldehyde


Hofmann & Formaldehyde


Sergeant Charles Anderson - Michael Faraday's Indefatigable Assistant





Jem Mace, in his time "The Most Scientific Pugilist Alive"


On a large Varanus species from the Island of Komodo, 1912


Computational Machines - Letter from Babbage to Davy 1822


CURARE - by ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT


The Apollo Guidance Computer


The Kuiper Belt and its implications


A Boiling River


Lavrion Old Mines


A Merlin is Made - Manufacture of the Spitfire Engine


The Lead District - from Durham Gazetteers 1828 & 1825





Victorian Hyperloop - Rammell's 1864 Pneumatic Railway at Crystal Palace


Time & Motion -- Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management & Gilbreth's Movies


Physicians in Great Danger From Medical X-Rays


An Address to Theoretical Physicists - The Fixion


Sperm Whale's Sexual Organs, Spermaceti & Ambergris


Growing Thallium Dendrites in 1879 - a beautiful forest of thorny crystals


Magnetic Effect on Arbor Diana Formation?


The Sympsychograph, by the founding president of Stanford University


The High Voltage Beatification of Professor Bose at Wittenburg


Burning Your Own Breath




For and Against Tobacco, 1865; The Pharmaceutical Journal


Lightning Experimentation Without Fatalities - 1897


A Couple of North Pennines Lead Mine Articles from Mine & Quarry Engineering


An Enlightening Lightning Article From the US National Bureau of Standards


The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott on 30 August 1909


Thomson Describes His Water Dropper Electrostatic Generator


The Gossen Bisix Exposure Meter - a 1950's design classic


Unknown Explosive Coating on Bismuth Metal - 1935


The Mechanics of Hanging - Popular Science Monthly, August 1885


Strange Medicines 1887





Octahedral Fluorite - Glengowla Mines, Connemara


A Natural Hour-Glass of Amalgam


A couple of fulgurite articles from the 1880s


Spiders and Their Ways - Popular Science Monthly, October 1888


Chapman is Unaware of Methyl Nitrate's Propensity for Ease of Detonation - 1872


On Some Phenomena of Capillary Attraction


Pharaoh's Serpents - Lethal Victorian Toys


Some Curious Lights - a collection of phosphorescence phenomena, compiled in 1863


Explosive Victorian Gas Fittings


Extraordinary case of Electrical Excitement - 1837





Killer Toy Caps of Olden Times


Some Experiments with the Great Induction Coil at the Royal Polytechnic


George Gore on scientific research & Mr. Hennell's chest laid entirely open by a fulminate explosion


Heddle on Scottish Native Metals


Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator


Cacodyl Cyanide Chemistry Catastrophe - Professor Bunsen's Aphasia, Black Tongue, Blind Eye & Nearly Fatal Poisoning


The Gyrojet Rocket Pistol


The Science of Pool


Radium Topics, Observation of an Iridium Flare, & Some Miscellania


Steam Electrical Machine, Box of Rattlesnakes & Kitten, Electric Eel






Electricity & Guns


Borrowdale Wad Mine


Permian Fossils in the Co. Durham Marl Slate


Ferryhill Fossil Fish - the famous Coelacanth


HELL KETTLES of Darlington - Subsidence hollows over Permian Upper Marl evaporites


Human Sacrifices to Independence Day in America & Subsequent Home-Made Fireworks for "The Murderous Fourth."


Remarkable & Beautiful Scintillating Platinum Alloying Phenomena


The Polapulse Battery


Victorian High Explosive Confectionary & Monthier's Cheap and Nasty Human Urine Batteries


Hand Blown to Bits - Dynamite Stories, by Hudson Maxim


© labphoto.tumblr.com




Canyon Diablo Meteorite Diamonds


Hope's Nose Dendritic Gold


Two Seabed Liquids - Carbon Dioxide & Sulphur


1860s Magic Concert


Gold Amalgam Crystals


Action of Actinium on Minerals - Kunz 1904


Neumayer's Magnetic Survey of Victoria, 1861 - The Cranbourne Meteorites


THE ELECTRONIC CANDLE - Interesting Optical Feedback Behaviour of an Arduino Coupled LDR & PWM LED


A Genius in the Family, by Hiram Percy Maxim


Radioactive Substances as a Cause of Malignant Growths






LUMINESCENCE & INCANDESCENCE by E. Newton Harvey, 1920


NASA Microgravity Hopper Crystals


Chemistry Course Bound to Maim or Kill


Scottish Nitroglycerin & One Legged Stools


Local Pub Hosts Royal Society of Chemistry Soirée


Thallium Artist's Paints & Crookes vs. Lamy


Scottish Gold by Alfred Lock 1882


Detonating Sugar & Scottish Gold


Beautiful Bright Red Pyrrhotite Crystal - Teesdale


SWAN open source AAC



© labphoto.tumblr.com



Alston Gold


North Pennines Lead Mining - Britannica Eighth Edition 1853-1860


Mr. Thompson Draws 14 Inch Sparks From a Newcastle Chimney


The first images of plutonium & neptunium compounds


Experimental generation of volcanic lightning using Popocatépetl ash


Effects of Lightning, including Franklin's Cold Fusion - 1849


Accounts of the death of Professor Richmann in 1753, whilst studying atmospheric electricity


Bright Yellow Carcinogenic Chromate Produced by Garden Wood Burner


On the Phosphorescence of the Diamond, by P. Riess, 1845


Kakapo - an 1832 account & head-shagging video






Diminutive Ball Lightning Created Using a Holtz Electrostatic Generator - 1870


Gaugain's Sparks from Tourmaline 1857


Professor Higgins of Dublin Deliberately Inhales Carbon Monoxide


Picric Acid in Beer


The Torture of Victorian Electro-Puncture - High voltage acupuncture needles


Brewster's Universally Attractable Powder - Pyroelectric Tourmaline Dust


Electric Shock from Radium & Autoradiograph of Uraninite


A tie as essential safety equipment - radium 226 & Gems


Hazardous Radioactive Diamond


Cleveland Ironstone Mining 1956






Ebelmen's Artificial Minerals 1851


Artificial Pyromorphite, Wulfenite, Crocoite & Anglesite


The Story of Dynamite


Homoeopathy - ?


Asylum Researcher, Lauder Lindsay, on Scottish Gold


On the brain of the Negro, compared with that of the European and Orang-Outang


Rocket Experiments By Dr Robert H Goddard (1926-1945)


Excellent Electrical Articles - Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910


DIAMOND. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910


Instructions for the Discrimination of Minerals by Simple Chemical Experiments, 1841






1864 Catalogue of Minerals at the Museum of Practical Geology


Electrical Activity in Ore Deposits


Molten Lead in the Mouth - Trickery, Not Leidenfrost Effect


Optical Properties of the Iodide of Mercury - Thermochromism


Fluorine Gas From Heating Potassium Fluoroplumbate - 1894


Nitroglycerin References


Arsenic Article 1838


Cabinet of Curiosities


Detection of Gold in Sea Water


There's Bismuthinite in Them Thar Hills - Filiform Crystals, Cambokeels, Weardale





Acoustic Detonation of Nitrogen Triiodide


Tobacco Poison 1862


Crystals in Toad Vertebrae


Metallic Ores


Geodes of Beautiful Gold Coloured Crystals in Soda Manufacture Waste


Underwater Explosion Phenomena


Russian Illustrations of Minerals & Fossils


Electrostatically Floating Goldfish


Unnoticed Fullerenes - Willard Hershey's Desk-top Diamond Furnace


Sir William Crookes - Radium Bromide Diamonds & 190000psi Enclosed Cordite Explosions






1812 - Phillips on the cuprite from the Muttrell Load at Wheal Gorland, Cornwall


Diamonds from Moissan's Extraordinary Electric Furnace


Diamond Synthesis à la Verne


On the Artificial Formation of the Diamond. By J.B.Hannay


Sir Charles Algernon Parsons 1918 - Diamond Synthesis Using a Wildcat .303 Lee-Enfield Rifle


1821 Cambridge Professor of Mineralogy on North England Minerals


F.A. Abel, Esq., F.R.S., on Some of the Causes, Effects, and Military Applications of Explosions, 1862


Locomotive Powered by Hydrogen Peroxide


Loco


Brewster on Thermoluminescent Natural Calcium Fluoride






Nikon D3100


Electric Sparks from Calcium Chloride


Bunsen on Cacodyl Cyanide


Execution & Resuscitation of a Murderer - Wonderful Effects of Galvanism


Ducati 695 Monster For Sale Sold


1820's - Reverend Sedgwick on Durham & Yorkshire Dykes


Anvil Crawler Lightning Described - 1850


Minerals of the Auriferous Districts of Wicklow


Dana Wrong - Bad Science in 1837 System of Mineralogy


A Geognostical Sketch of the North Pennine Orefield, 1814






The Thermoluminescence Spectrum of Fluorspar, 1905


The Fluorescence Spectrum of Fluorspar, 1905


Volta's Paradox & Lichtenberg's Giant Electrophorus


On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah. 1843


Alteration of the Human Voice by Hydrogen


Who Discovered Photography? A Victorian View


Pressing on the Brains of Hospital Patients


Little Dog & Hydrofluoric Acid


Whimsical Effects of Nitrous Oxide Gas


On Double Crystals of Fluor Spar - Whewell 1821






Nitrogen Triiodide


Big Ice Crystals- fascinating frost damage


Experiments on Certain Oxalates


Marconi - Gold From Seawater


A Million Volts or Bust


Boiling Quicksilver & Fluorspar Reading Lamp


Ali G on Science


Mercury Flames, Phosphine & Oxygen Explosions, Throwing Glass Bottles of Hydrogen & Chlorine into Sunlight, and other Incredibly Dangerous Experiments for the Young Chemist in the 1860's.


Antimony Oxide Crystals, dimorphous forms, both artificial & natural


Randle's Folly - A Frankenstein Gold Mill at Dunolly






1774 - Edward Nairne's Exploding Wires & Cock Electrocution


Shoad & Float Ores, and Subsequent Hushing


Chemical Fogs


Sound from Vortices


Mr. Symmer's Static Silk Stockings


Victorian Production of One Ounce of Nitrogen Trichloride
A Discourse Relating to the Economical Production of the Most Dangerously Explosive Substance Known, Using Only Natural Minerals & Human Gastric Juice. The first chapter of "The Ernest Glitch Chronicles"


Nitrogen Trichloride References


Mineral Inclusion Photos & Eye-Straining Text


Artificial Crystallisation of Mineral Matters and Metals in the Moist Way, 1865


Greek Fire, 1864






Mr. Tomlinson's Experiments on the Electrical Fly


Luminous Fungi in Cardiff Coal Mines


How Does the World Look to a Fly?


Hunt on British Gold, 1865


Tyndall on Acoustic Flames 1867


The Impossibility of Photography & Hallucinatory Toads & Mushrooms


Dr. Schaphaeutl's Exploding Water Experiments, Tetrafluoroethane & Boiler Explosions


Ant Pheromone Vortex of Death


In Bed with Boyle - Clayton's Piezoluminescent Diamond, 1663


Western Kentucky Fluorite - 1905







Galvanic Reanimation of the Dead


Volcanic Gases and Sublimates


Bennet's Doubler


Marie Curie - Method of Extraction of Radium From a Tonne of Pitchblende Residues


Signatures of Scientists


The Boltsburn Flats


Funny Drug Man and Giant Waxy Monkey Frog


Chemistry and Physics of Energetic Materials


Classic & Unique Electric Vauxhall


Victorian British Bulk Drug Dealing - China Addicted To Morphine






Alpine Air to Produce 30 Million Volts for Atom Smasher - One Man Dies


Hot Air Heiligenschein


1808 Laughing Gas Experimentation


Nuclear Explosion Induced Lightning


Sorby's Illustrations of the Microscopical Structure of Crystals 1858


Using Glide Ratio to Stimulate the Hypothalamus & the Adrenal & Pituitary Glands


Dynamite in Geordieland, Blast Furnace Trouble


Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Documents


Vintage, & Wonderful, Royal Institution Lectures


1810 Discovery of a Mass of Native Iron & Luminescent, Poisonous Plant in Brasil






Artificial Fulgurites


Artificial Chalybeate Water Exhibits Iridescent Surface Film - 1807


Two Hours of Excellent Science Entertainment - Royal Institution


High Explosive From Aussie Plants - 1858 to World War One


Copper Fulgurite Tops Vulcano


Galvanic Experiments on the Dead Body of a Criminal, Artificial Volcano, etc., etc.


Teesdale puddles - nano-mineral schwertmannite thin-film floaters


Sir William Armstrong - Interesting Intellect, Weapons Innovator


Punch Attempts British Association Humour - 1843


xkcd cartoons







1858 - Wöhler Extracts Organics From Meteorite


Preparation of Pure Tellurium. By Berzelius


Copper & Coal Gas Explosives - Professor Bottger Nearly Rediscovers Acetylene


Mr. Clarke excites his optic nerves with a generator


Explosions for Fun - Mega Bomba & Anvil Tossing


On the Evolution of Light During Crystallization


Thenard 1832, "Animals when allowed to breathe the pure gas fall down as if struck with a bullet"


A Couple of Electrical Machines


Mr. Rudder & Mr. Benson sink bottles from the Princess Victoria


The Lugworm - Arenicola marina - An Admiral Annelid for Anglers






Peculiar Compound of Platinum


Cobalt in Cleveland Ironstone 1863


Edison Wax Cylinders For Sound Recording


Cat Lives After Hydrocyanic Acid & Chlorine Experiment!


Desirable Cockpit & View


Photo Slideshow - Micromount Mineral Crystals


Victorian Artificial Formation of Minerals


Were Fox Measures 37 meter Teesdale Lead Vein Electrical Continuity 1838


1829 - Hydrogen Gas From Mushrooms


Titan's Many Layered Atmosphere






LOLA Simulator - A load of balls


Benjamin Franklin Electrocutes Turkeys


Metallo-Chromes - Lead Oxide Interference Colours


Project Cannikin - 5 Megaton Nuke & Sea Otter Eyeballs


Electro-Springs


A Random Walk


A Lecture on Semiconductor Physics by a Nobel Lauriate


It's Alive! Mr. Crosse's Acari


Artificial Minerals - Victorian Electrocrystallisation Experiments


Project Gnome - Fused Halite Stalactites







How Spiders Fly, Beer From Coal, Tea etc.


Amplification - The Early Years


Quantum Levitation


Cannabis & Nuclear Bomb Double Flash - The Bhangmeter


Bill Beaty - Scientist, Engineer & Educator Extraordinaire


Is Alcohol Food?


Explosive Drugs


Feynman - Genius & Nice Guy


Newcastle Town Moor Nitro Carnage; 30 Canisters Stashed in Boozer Cellar


Teesdale Tornado - Coldberry Rope Out






Bullet impacts & Silane


Extraction of Platinum Group Metals


Phosphine Smoke-rings & Explosive Polymerisation Produced in Adrian's Splendid Chemistry Laboratory


Ozone & Antozone Simultaneous Formation


Ball Lightning?


Not Saint Elmo's Fire


Microscopic Californian Diamonds, Topaz & Zircons. By Silliman, 1873


Light Emission from Sodium & Potassium


Peculiar Effects of Light on Charcoal & Silver Nitrate Solution


Experiments on the Preparation & Uses of Fulminating & Detonating Compounds







Lake Peigneur Disaster - Whirlpool & Waterfall


A Selection of Fluorescent Minerals


Leidenfrost Effect - Lead Floating on Molten Iron


Spinning amalgam globules, 1852


On a New Series of Chemical Reactions Produced by Light. Tyndall 1868


Stainton Beck - Magnetic Basaltic Andesite & Fossil Beds


A Drop of Water, Mercury & Electricity. 1826 Electrowetting


Pearsall on Sparks & Phosphorescence


Berzelius Inhales Hydrogen Selenide Gas 1819


The Experiments of R.P. Williams 1888






Phosphorescent Minerals & Electrical Discharges - Pearsall 1830


Replacement of the Internal Structure of Wood by Pure Silver


Californian Crystalline Gold 1855


Influence Machines, by Wimshurst 1888


An Acoustic Rainbow


Brewster Studies Fluorite Colour Phenomenon in Weardale Crystals - 1838


Upward Lightning


1818 - Newly Discovered Variety of Green Fluorite, Uncommon Beauty, Remarkable Colour & Phosphorescent Properties


Proposal for Hydrogen Instead of Fossil Fuel 1863


Liquefaction During Japan's 2011 Earthquake






A Method of Electro-Plating Lizards


Electroluminescent Silicon Carbide Crystals in 1907


Copperas Efflorescence


Fictional Influence Machine


"Tore off both legs from the unfortunate M. Hervy"


THE DISCOVERY OF RADIUM by Marie Curie


Early Aluminium & Beryllium


Explosive Antimony


Victorian Nitrogen Laser


Martinus Van Marum (1750-1837) "discovers" a light blue gas, with the help of Mr. Cuthbertson






Hittorf's Metallic Phosphorus of 1865


Victorian Tesla Coil, with reference to a possible medieval coil


Helix Chemica


Artificial Volcanism


MR PERKINS` EXTRAORDINARY STEAM GUN OF 1824


The Transit of Venus


Edison Drug Baron


Alchemy; a Pseudo-Science


Weardale's Slitt Mine Visited by Clergyman - 1850s Green Fluorite


Edison Electrocutes Elephant






A Case of Arseniuretted Hydrogen Poisoning 1841


The Young Man's Book of Amusement


The following are archived from www.lateralscience.co.uk. They have yet to be incorporated into this blog



Fulminating Oils - Sweat of the Devil
Two sensitive high-explosive liquids & fearless scientists with missing body parts



An Excellent Van de Graaff Design from 1938
500kV and 200uA from this four foot high electrostatic generator



Experimenting with Weapons-Grade Fissile Material in the Home
The Spinthariscope - Crookes` Turbulent Luminous Sea



Fulgurites - Tubes Formed by Lightning
Darwin's observations from South America 1832



Writing Under the Shell of an Egg
How can one be without this essential life-skill?



Cloud Chambers
Apparatus to render visible the tracks of swift electrified particles such as californium fission fragments



Gas of Lucifer, the Tiger of Chemistry... Fluorine
Fluorine is the most reactive element. It's isolation proved to be one of the most difficult problems in chemistry. Horrendously poisonous, devilishly corrosive, many 19th century chemists were killed or mauled by the tiger



Colloidal Growth
The "chemical garden"







Coolidge uses 200kV Lenard Rays to Punch Holes in Rabbits Ears
Also the profuse growth of snow-white hair is induced



Getting Gold
Complete book on-line : Getting Gold, A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners, & Students. J.C.F. Johnson 1898



Red Sprites & Blue Jets
Early documentation of these unusual luminous electrical discharges, which dart from thunderclouds up towards space. Chapter 7 of "Rudimentary Electricity" by Sir W. Snow Harris, third edition 1853



Pyrotechnic Magic
Unbelievably dangerous magic tricks for the magician with a death wish, from 1948



Lord Rayleigh`s Active Allotrope of Nitrogen
"A whirling cloud of brilliant yellow light"



The Most Powerful Rock Ever Found
A Belgian man in a pith helmet irradiates his gonads with seven tons of uranium ore



The Production of Fine Bluish Crystals of Aluminium Nitride
An interesting experiment using atmospheric diffusion



Atomic Hydrogen Blowtorch
In 1926 Langmuir invented this electrical dissociation blowtorch, capable of attaining 3700 degrees C. Melt tungsten, vapourise diamond!



A Miscellany of Mineralogical Articles
Some interesting articles from American Mineralogist







Forming Vessels of Gold Using Phosphorus
An ingenious, if hazardous, method of producing goldware for chemical research



Safe Breaker's Tools
A complete burglar's outfit for opening safes and strong rooms, 1929



Leyden Jars & Leyden Batteries
"...was discharged through and upon various kinds of matter, its force was quite irresistible."
"....disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke, from which fell red-hot globules of tin."



Fluorescence of CaF2 (Eu) with 337.1nm laser?
Are Glitch's observations reliable?



GOLD - an element of beauty & violence
General auriferous subjects including Fulminating & Scottish gold



The Footsteps of a Fly
Professor Hughes' flystep amplifier from 1877



"A large globe of bluish fire struck Professor Richman on the head, and he instantly expired"
Highly dangerous experimentation with lightning



The Evolution of the Zip
fascinating fastening



Strutt's Radium Clock
"This arrangement is perhaps the nearest approach yet made to perpetual motion."



Oft Overlooked Innovations Within Van de Graaff's Original Patent of 1935
A feebly conductive coating on the supporting column overcomes corona leakage at opening of sphere, & possibility of replacing charge transport belt with pumped insulating fluid







Metallic Carbonyls
Gilbert T. Morgan, O.B.E., F.R.S. describes unusual compounds such as nickel carbonyl, a colourless volatile liquid



Tesla Coil
A 5MV pressurised oil immersed bipolar tesla coil by Breit 1930



Hydrogen Metal
Hydrogen exists in a metallic state in the core of Jupiter. It has been momentarily created in the laboratory using this self destructing apparatus



Radon Collection
The collection of radon from radium salts is very perilous, because of the extreme radioactivity



Spectacular Isolation of Metallic Potassium & Sodium by Davy, 1807
"...sometimes violently exploded and separated into smaller globules, which flew with great velocity through the air in a state of vivid combustion, producing a beautiful effect of continued jets of fire."



The Laboratory of Ernest Glitch
An illustration of his apparatus for the synthesis of an organic compound



Mechanical Television
The early equipment (patented by Nipkow in 1884) was simple and consisted of rotating discs with spirally placed holes



Slickensides Galena & Other Naturally Occurring Explosives
Siberian Marekanite, natural Prince Rupert`s drops. Detonating Derbyshire Galena, Higginbotham narrowly escapes crackingwhole explosion. Lanchester Witherite, collector's dismay



Moist Conductors of the Second Class
Contact Electrification by Prof. F. Sanford, 1915



The Plate Glass Electrical Machine
Pages 61 - 65 from Rudimentary Electricity, Sir Snow Harris, 1853








Doctor Diode
Dr. Diode, Practitioner of Experimental Exotica, Unleashes the Primal Energies of the Universe in a Series of Terrific Science Japes



The Operation of a 1950's Cyclotron
"Cleaning a cyclotron is neither an easy nor a pleasant job"



Lateral Science Inverted
Antipodean anecdotes of an unusual nature



Eclectic Science Esoterica Shop
Unusual items of science & engineering interest for sale







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WARNING - Many subjects outlined within this site are extremely dangerous and are provided here for information only. Please don`t experiment with high voltages or chemicals unless you are fully conversant with safe laboratory practices. No liability will be accepted for death, injury or damage arising from experimentation using any information or materials supplied.