The Natural Boundaries of Empires Author:John Finch Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. SEAS AND OCEANS. The first step in the art of navigation forms an important epoch in the life of children in every country, in every clime, an... more »d among all classes of society. You may travel in many countries, and partake of many amusements; but never again will you experience the same thrill of rapture as when a child, with a gay troop of young companions, you sallied forth to a neighbouring common, to ascertain by actual experiment, whether the tale was true, that nutshells, when empty and placed on the water, would really float on the surface. The children have been at much trouble to collect these shells, for it is only on company days that nuts are placed as a desert upon the table, and they have therefore to wait some time before they can make the experiment on a large scale. At length the important day arrives, and when they place a whole flotilla of nutshells on the water, and find they do not sink, but floatgaily Od the surface, such a shout of joy arises, as may be heard to the verge of the wood. Their joy is however of short duration, for a flock of geese to whom the pond of right belongs, at this instant, make their appearance, and sail among the fleet, and seeing some strange substances on the water begin to peck at them, and one, more mischievous than the rest, has even the audacity to flap with his wings and make such waves, that, before they even think of it, one-half the flotilla is sunk, and the rest are in imminent danger. The children are compelled in self-defence to rain a shower of stones at the enemy, and after a hard battle are enabled to rescue the remainder of the fleet. The next advance in the art of navigation is when children begin to disdain the nutshells, because they are so small, and procure the large walnut-shells, and carefull...« less