PEEFACE. 



The possibility of interesting young people, even 

 little children, in the science of simple things, oc- 

 curred to me the first time I ever had the pleasure 

 of listening to Professor Huxley. His lucid descrip- 

 tion of the yeast-plant recalled the play of my child- 

 hood, and then and there was suggested the plan of 

 which this volume is the attempted execution. It 

 was originally written in the form of letters from Eng- 

 land to my little nephew in America ; by a subsequent 

 modification it assumed its present form of scientific 

 talks with Boys and Girls. 



Reasoning from the inquiries that children are 

 continually making, and from the unanswered ques- 

 tions asked by myself when a child, I feel there is in 

 the minds of children a need which this work is de- 

 signed to supply. Even if young people never asked 



