The American Boy's Handy Book Centennial Edition

This book was the perfect survival manual. It contained plans for 16 kinds of kites and hot-air ballons and fishing tackle. It told you how to make and stock an aquarium, to construct a water telescope and how to camp out without a tent. Or in a hut made from pine boughs. How to build 10 kinds of boats, including a flatboat with a covered cabin. Iceboats, too. One-person canoes. Bird calls. Squirt guns with astonishing range and authority.