Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Sugar may be properly reckoned a necessary of life. It is of almost universal use throughout the world. The scattered tribes of North American Indians spend the months of spring in their rude encampments, manufacturing sugar out of the juice of the maple;–the five-and-twenty million inhabitants of Great Britain employ, throughout the year,two hundred thousand […]

One morning, at an inn in the south of Ireland, a gentleman travelling upon mercantile business, came running down stairs a few minutes before the appearance of the stage coach, in which he’ had taken a seat for Dublin. Seeing an ugly little fellow leaning against the doorpost, with dirty face and shabby clothes, he […]

From Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal Subsequent to the disastrous attack on the American lines before New Orleans, on the 8th of January 1815, the British army proceeded to Isle Dauphine, :n the Gulf of Mexico, where the troops remained until peace was concluded between Great Britain and the United States. As the men had been for […]

The art of printing is one of the most extraordinary results of human ingenuity, and is certainly the very noblest of all the known handicrafts. Yet, important as it is acknowledged to be, three centuries elapsed from the date of the invention before it was perfected in many of its most necessary details. At first, […]

The banana and the bread-fruit are examples of extraordinary vegetable fruitfulness, with very little assistance from the care of man. The banana is not known in an uncultivated state; and those who principally depend upon the plant for subsistence propagate it by suckers. But here the labor of cultivation almost ends; and M. Humboldt has […]

The following interesting anecdote occurs in a German work, lately published, entitled A Picture of St. Petersburgh. In a little town, five miles from St. Petersburgh, lived a poor German woman. A small cottage was her only possession, and the visits of a few shipmasters, on their way to Petersburgh, her only livelihood. Several Dutch […]

In the whole circle of our manufactures there is not any thing more curious than the one that is depicted in the above engraving. Materials which appear of themselves but little fitted for any useful purpose, are blended together so as to form corn-pounds of a new and entirely distinct character. Indeed, an uninitiated person […]

I was bred up in the dislike of the marvellous, or the stupid wonderful, as my uncle called it. I must relate an anecdote in point. Some gentlemen were dining together, and relating their travelling adventures; one of them dealt so much in the marvellous, that it induced another to give him a lesson. ” […]

From the works of Don Juarros Ancient city of Utatlan. This was the capital of the native kings of Quiche, and covered the extensive plain on which now stands the village of Santa Cruz del Quiche. The centre of the city was occupied by the royal palace. The streets were very narrow, but the place […]

The Bushmen appear to be the remains of Hottentot hordes, originally subsisting, like all the aboriginal tribes of Southern Africa, chiefly by rearing cattle; but who have been driven, chiefly by the gradual encroachments of the European colonists, to seek for refuge among the inaccessible rocks and sterile deserts of the interior. Most of the […]