The frontispiece shows a boy stepping off a cliff in a glider built according to instructions on page 171. The glider is rather like the ones that flight-pioneer Otto Lilienthal had flown until 1896, when he fell to his death in one. There were few lawsuits and no OSHA in 1913. If you read this wonderful old book and then killed yourself, it was your carelessness, not the publisher's. You'd better make the joints secure when you built the wing.
Electricity looms large.
You can rig a device that'll ring a bell when fish strike the line you've dropped through the ice. Or you can rig magnets below an Ouija board and compose your own spirit messages. We read how to counterfeit pennies. Make a wax impression of the penny, coat the wax with black lead, then electroplate the penny into the wax mould. The trick is to make a battery cell from a strip of zinc in an electrolytic solution.