An induction coil gathers the electricity generated and directs it to a specially designed lantern. In this lantern one finds a glass spiral that contains only a residue of carbon dioxide gas. When the device is operating, this gas becomes luminous and gives off a continuous whitish light.

Fluorescent lighting would have been pretty cutting edge in 1869 with the earliest ancestor of the fluorescent lamp being the device by Heinrich Geissler who, in 1856, obtained a bluish glow from a gas which was sealed in a tube and excited with an induction coil.

Leyden jar

A device for storing electric charge (the first capacitor) invented in 1745 by Pieter van Musschenbroek.

“It consists of a tank built from heavy sheet iron in which I store air under a pressure of fifty atmospheres… …the tank on my diving equipment can supply breathable air for nine or ten hours.”

50 atmospheres is 740 psi for any divers out there. Modern scuba tanks go to about 3000 psi and can only stay down for a couple hours. I guess Nero would need some huge tanks and shallow water to be able to stay that long underwater.

Everyone knows that fish make up the fourth and last class in the vertebrate branch

Seems like the current understanding would be five classes; fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals (although fish are actually broken in up into a few classes). I wonder what the four classes would have been. I guess they must have lumped amphibians and reptiles together.

I think most of the divisions of the fishes have changed too although most of the descriptive groupings have stayed together.

one of those men of science, like America’s Commander Maury, whose careers were ruined by political revolutions

I think this is Matthew Fontaine Maury, a US Navy Commander who made many important contributions to charting winds and ocean currents and wrote important books on oceanography. Wikipedia says he supported the Confederacy in the Civil War but doesn’t talk about any career ruining.

Œdipus regarded the Sphinx

This is Oedipus (of Oedipus complex fame) who met a Sphinx that killed anyone who did not know the answer to the riddle:

Which creature in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?

Each utensil, spoon, fork, knife, and plate, bore on its reverse a letter encircled by a Latin motto

So they don’t understand Latin but they put Latin on their silverware? I wonder what the point of feigning ignorance was?

Heaving the log, we verified that the Abraham Lincoln was going at the rate of 18.5 miles per hour.

Physlink.com explains the meaning of heaving the log:

In the ancient times, the only way to measure ship speed was to throw a wood log into the water and observe how fast it moves away from the ship. This approximate method of ship speed measurement was called ‘Heaving the Log’ and was used until 1500-1600s when the ‘Chip Log’ method was invented (both methods probably invented by Dutch sailors.)

The ‘Chip Log’ apparatus consisted of a small weighted wood panel that was attached to the reel of rope, and a time measuring device: a half-minute sand glass (as shown in image below to the right.)Chip Log Rope had knots tied at equal distances along the reel. Sailors would throw the wood panel into the sea, behind the ship, and the rope would start unwinding from the reel. The faster the ship was moving forward the faster the rope would unwind. By counting the number of knots that went overboard in a given time interval, measured by the sand glass, they could tell the ship’s speed. In fact that is the origin of the nautical speed unit: the knot.

Funny, I had always figured ‘knot’ was a contraction of nautical not based on real knots in a rope.