Nature's Teachings - Human Invention Anticipated by Nature

Publisher Marketing: A GLANCE at almost any page of this work will denote its object. It is to show the close connection between Nature and human inventions, and that there is scarcely an invention of man that has not its prototype in Nature. And it is worthy of notice that the greatest results have been obtained from means apparently the most insignificant. There are two inventions, for example, which have changed the face of the earth, and which yet sprang from sources that were despised by men, and thought only fit for the passing sport of childhood. In the course of this work I have placed side by side a great number of parallels of Nature and Art, making the descriptions as terse and simple as possible, and illustrating them with more than seven hundred and fifty figures. The corollary which I hope will be drawn from the work is evident enough. It is, that as existing human inventions have been anticipated by Nature, so it will surely be found that in Nature lie the prototypes of inventions not yet revealed to man. The great disco.-erers of the future will, therefore, be those who will look to Nature for Art, Science, or Mechanics, instead of taking pride in some new invention, and then finding that it has existed in Nature for countless centuries. I ought to mention that the illustrations are not intended to be finished drawings, but merely charts or maps, calling attention to the salient points..... Contributor Bio:  Wood, J G Life and works: Early life and ordination Wood was born in London, son of surgeon John Freeman Wood and Juliana Lisetta, and educated at home, at Ashbourne grammar school and Merton College, Oxford (B. A., 1848, M. A., 1851); also at Christ Church, where he worked for some time in the anatomical museum under Sir Henry Acland. In 1852 he became curate of the parish of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and in 1854 was ordained priest; he also took up the post of chaplain to the Boatmen's Floating Chapel at Oxford. Among other benefices which he held was for a time chaplain to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1878 Wood settled in Upper Norwood, where he lived until his death. Parson-naturalist: In 1854, Wood gave up his curacy to devote himself to writing on natural history, becoming a well-known parson-naturalist of the Victorian era. However, he continued to take on priestly work, as in 1858 he accepted a readership at Christ Church, Newgate Street, and was assistant-chaplain to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, from 1856 until 1862. Between 1868 and 1876 he was precentor to the Canterbury Diocesan Choral Union. After 1876 he devoted himself to the production of books and lecturing on zoology, which he illustrated by drawing on a black-board or on large sheets of white paper with coloured crayons. These "sketch lectures," as he called them, were very popular, and made his name widely known both in Great Britain and in the United States. Wood gave occasional lectures from 1856. In 1879, however, he began lecturing as a second profession, and continued to lecture steadily until 1888 in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. He delivered the Lowell Lectures in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1883-4. Wood was a prolific and successful natural history writer, though rather as a populariser than as a scientist.