[…]in 1593, Sir Hugh Platt, of Lincolne’s Inne, Gentleman, produced his “Dyvers Soyles for manuring Pasture and Arable Land;” in 1594, his “Jewel-house of Art and Nature, containing divers rare and profitable Instructions, together with sundry new Experiments in the Art of Husbandry, distillation, and moulding;” and “Divers Chimicall conclusions;” a book which by Martin is thought to have been really the work of several hands, and to have been edited merely by Platt, who in his preface extols his “Conceyted book of Gardening, wherein he has set downe sundrie observations, which neither M. Tusser, though he have written shapelily, nor Master Hill though he have written painfully, nor Master Barnabe Googe though he have written soundlye, applying himself in his whole discourse both to our Soyle and Clymate, hath as yet discovered to the world.”

Fifteen or 20 years ago, you couldn't even mention the word prostate in polite mixed company.

The removal of the capital of the island of Formosa from Tainanfu, on the coast, to Taipeh, gave Governor Liu Ming Chuan an excuse to construct a railway between the capital and the coast in spite of the opposition in Peking. In 1889 a twelve-mile line connecting Tuatutia and Saitingka was opened to traffic. The work was continued until 1893, at which time 62 miles were opened to traffic between Hsinchu and the northern port of Keelung. At this period the Peking government issued an order to suspend further construction work. All the collieries were closed, and, with the exception of passenger traffic there was little activity in transportation.

The restudy of cosmological processes led to a new view as to the relations of the erratic elements of the solar system, the meteors, meteorites, and comets, to the normal elements, the planets, planetoids, planetesimals, satellites, and satellitesimals, to the effect that they were all formed by the same type of dynamic action, save that the former were given erratic orbits, while the latter were given concurrent orbits.