This is a collection of images shared with me by the man who scanned them from various antique bibles and other old books, including:  Mathematical Astronomy by C.W.C. Barlow & G.H. Bryan (1893); Dawn of Astronomy by Sir Norman Lockyer (late 1800's); Baedeker's Palestine and Syria (1912); An Illustrated History of the Holy Bible, published by Henry Bill (1871); and The Holy Bible, published by John E. Potter and Company (late 1800's). Rather than being organized by the book they come from, they are roughly organized by subject. This is because they were given to me this way by the person who scanned them, William Struse, and I have kept his organization. The images are all public domain and he shared them with me with the understanding they would be offered for free here. He has only thumbnails on his site, and this was an easy way for him to share the larger images with a broader audience.  The maximum size of each image varies greatly.  I have edited them extensively to clean up the dirt and shadows and to darken, brighten, and otherwise enhance the lines.  A lot of text shows through from the obverse side of the leaves, but ...

In 1838 and 1839, Roberts spent eleven months traveling and sketching throughout Egypt from Alexandria to Abu Simbel and through Sinai to Petra, Jerusalem, Palestine, and Lebanon. The 247 lithographs that Belgian engraver Louis Haghe then produced at the rate of one a month from the drawings executed during Roberts' trip were published in six volumes as "The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia" (1842-1846) and "Egypt and Nubia" (1846-1849). While these are available elsewhere, they are not usually very large or in an easy to use format (or they cost money).  These are from the Library of Congress, which has them in unedited TIF files.  I have cropped them , edited them, cleaned up any glaring dirtiness, and converted them to JPEG for easy download in the GALLERY. Title: Egypt and Nubia Author: David Roberts Artist: David Roberts / lithographed by Louis Haghe Publisher: F.G. (Francis Graham) Moon Date Published: 1846-1849 Click an image to visit the gallery page where it is available in different sized for free download. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Dancing Girls at Cairo"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Mosque of Sultan Hassan from the Great Square of the Rumeyleh "][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Cairo"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="134" caption="Tombs of the khalifs, Cairo"][/caption] [caption id="" ...

Joel Tyler Headley is remembered in the annals of Adirondack history, and by book collectors and aficionados, as one of the first writers, if not the first, to draw true, widespread attention to the region. The Adirondack; or Life in the Woods, written after a pair of trips north in the 1840’s, sold well and promoted interest in the Adirondacks as an unspoiled wilderness and a potential health and recreational retreat. Headley’s long career, though, was hardly defined by the book. He went on to work in the New York City newspaper business, he was elected to the assembly, and he served as New York’s Secretary of State for a brief term. His trips, enforced vacations taken soon after his ordination as a Presbyterian minister, were dictated by what was apparently over-work, a mental breakdown, or some similar situation. In his words, an “attack on the brain first drove me from the haunts of men to seek mental repose and physical strength in the woods.” Whatever the reason, the book is seminal. He paints the mountains and the journey in the light of similar European tours historically taken to the Scottish Highlands or the Alps, and helps set the tone ...