The Infernal Machines

As strange as two stars colliding Die Rückkehr von Eine kleine Nachtmusik &

[infernalmachines]

In 1838 Henriette D’Angeville climbed Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border with 18 bottles of wine, 26 roast chickens, and a carrier pigeon. She became the first woman to complete the ascent unaided. When she reached the summit (4,805m) Henriette asked to be lifted up so she could go higher than any man who had gone before her. (Marie Paradis, a local woman from Chamonix, had reached the top 30 years earlier, but was carried to the summit due to altitude sickness). D’Angeville continued her climbing career into her late 60s.

Henriette fashioned her own outfit for the enterprise as climbing clothes for women did not exist at that time. In the northern summer of 2024 adventurer Elise Wortley (Woman with Altitude) plans to recreate Henriette's climb in the same outfit. It is part of her ongoing mission to highlight female pioneers and explorers who have been overlooked by the history books and to inspire more women to take to the outdoors. 

[infernalmachines]

In November 1833, there was an intense meteor storm as the Leonids showered the Earth, with up to 100,000 per hour crossing the night sky, an event so spectacular that the world took note. Many believed it was coming to an end. For every one of the next 32 years, the Leonids were quiet and modest, but nothing near the 1833 outburst. Then, in 1866, it happened again. Engraving By Adolf Vollmy.

[nemfrog]

Saturn floats. Our Country and Its Resources. 1917.

“Saturn, the lightest of the planets in proportion to its size, would float in water (if there were an ocean big enough to hold it!)”

[infernalmachines]

Jean Marais and Josette Day in Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (1946)

[artist-vallotton]

The Matterhorn (Matterhorn), 1892, Felix Vallotton

https://www.wikiart.org/en/felix-vallotton/the-matterhorn-matterhorn-1892

[edmund-dulac]

Princess and the Pea (The Real Princess), illustration to the Princess and the Pea, Edmund Dulac

https://www.wikiart.org/en/edmund-dulac/princess-and-the-pea-the-real-princess-illustration-to-the-princess-and-the-pea

[sillysymphonys]

Silly Symphony - Water Babies directed by Wilfred Jackson, 1935

[perfectquote]

Someone can be madly in love with you and still not be ready. They can love you in a way you have never been loved and still not join you on the bridge. And whatever their reasons you must leave. Because you never ever have to inspire anyone to meet you on the bridge. You never ever have to convince someone to do the work to be ready. There is more extraordinary love, more love that you have never seen, out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready.

Nayyirah Waheed (via perfectquote)

[clawmarks]

Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle - Charles Orbigny - c.1844-1849 - via e-rara

[clawmarks]

Histoire générale des insectes de Surinam et de toute l'Europe - Maria Sibylla Merian - 1771 - via Gallica

[infernalmachines]

Description: Col. lithograph. Illustration of “The geographical distribution of indigenous vegetation in a perpendicular direction in the torrid, temperate and frigid zones, with indications of the mean temperature of the year and of the coldest and warmest months.”  Shows the Andes, Teneriffe, Himalaya, Alps & Pyrenees and Lapland. By A.K. Johnston, F.R.S.E. & Arthur Henfrey, F.R.S., E.L.S. &c. Inset charts: Map of Schouws phyto-geographic regions with the distribution of plants especially influencing the physiognomy of the vegetation of the globe.  Includes drawings of plants and plant parts. Engraved & printed in colours by W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh & London. 1st. May 1854, (1856)

Author: Johnston, Alexander Keith, 1804-1871; Henfrey, Arthur, 1819-1859; Schouw, Joakim Frederik, 1789-1852 Date: 1854 World Area: World Subject: Vegetation

Source: davidrumsey.com

[suonko]

by Carl Pluckebaum

[infernalmachines]

HOOKE, Robert (1635-1703). Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: John Martyn and James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1665.

[infernalmachines]

The Flea, Robert Hooke, Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: John Martyn and James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1665.

[infernalmachines]

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city, go firmly to the window and listen with deep emotion, but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward; listen—your final delectation—to the voices, to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

The God Abandons Antony,  C.P. Cavafy, 1911

[bexx1things]

San Francisco (over 100 years ago)

[aiiaiiiyo]

Woman wearing dress with roses on bodice and holding a fan. Name unknown. Photographed by Alvan S. Harper. Tallahassee Fl. 1890 [1200x1793] Check this blog!