Magician's Own Book: Experiments in Electricity (1862)

Absolutely love these kind of books.

I became fascinated as a kid when I stumbled upon the unfortunately named The Boy Mechanic [1] at a friend of the family's farm house. I later found that there were a whole series [2]. Popular Mechanics did a newer version in the 1940's as well [3].

I discovered the two volumes of the mazing German set: The Way Things Work [4] (not so much DIY, I guess).

I think there is just something about the older texts.

Then there was the amazing 700 Science Experiments [5] put together by UNESCO (who knew UNESCO did books?). I suppose a poor community could put together a kind of school laboratory from such a book, teach real science.

I seek out these kind of books now and am happy to now be able to peruse one of the oldest.

[1] https://archive.org/details/theboymechanicvo12655gut/page/n5...

https://archive.org/details/boymechanicthin00cogoog/page/n8/...

[2] https://archive.org/details/boymechanicbook200chic2/page/n7/...

https://archive.org/details/boymechanicthing03unse/page/n5/m...

https://archive.org/details/boymechanicthing04unse/page/n5/m...

[3] https://archive.org/details/boymechanicbook100popu/page/n3/m...

[4] https://archive.org/details/universalencyclo00lond/page/n5/m...

https://archive.org/details/waythingswork02newy/page/n5/mode...

[5] https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780385052757/page/n3/mode/...