Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1862-01-10
Bits Of Luck.

Bits Of Luck.
Few people are aware how much we owe
TO accidents. That we often lose by them
is indeed, true. Property is destroyed to
irightful extent, lives are sacrificed, or 4
work on which years of labor and ingeuity
have been spent, is suddenly rendered use.
less, but, on the whole, believe the world
is gamer by accidents. They have add
ed, hey yond the power of calculation, TO our
stock of knowledge and riches. Without
them, the astronomer would never have
been supplied with his telescope or pendu-
lum; many of the convenences and neces-
saries OF life, as we now consider them,
would be unknown; and much of the
wealth floating about in the world, and find.
ing employment for thousands, would be ly.
ing undiscovered in the bowels of the earth,
Accidents of the kind / am speaking of are
indeed no more than friendly hints of ma
ture, which require attentive minds to seize
upon and understand them. The thought
less or careless would pass them for ages
day after day, and never be a .iot the wiser
or better for them.
There must be quick eye, and a mind
as sensitive as the prepared paper of the
photographic, to catch these hints. While
the eye sees, the mind must seize upon and
retain the lesson. Mr.. Smiles, in his Self
help, gives most admirable case in point
While Captain, afterwards Sir Samuel,
Brown was occupied in studying the con-
struction of bridges. with the view of con.
irving one of cheap description to be
thrown across the Tweed, near which he
lived, he was walking in his garden one
dewy autumn morning when he saw tiny
spiders net suspended across his path.
The idea Immediately occurred to him that
a bridge of iron ropes or chains might be
constructed In like manner; and the result
was the invention of his suspension bridge"
A most trifing Incident this, it would seem,
and yet what beneficial results it has led to
His mind was so thoroughly prepared for
the slightest impression, and spiders web
was sufficient to imprint upon it an. idea
winch has eventuated in such stupendous
yet beautiful networks as that which spans
the Menai Strait ! never look on one of
these triumphs of engineering skill without
remembering that a little spider was the first
constructor of suspension bridges, and gave
the hint to man.
But perhaps there seems too little of ac-
cident in this for some persons they would
like more decided case--a man picking
up stone and finding it lump of silver,
or something that was really worth calling
a "piece of luck Here, then, is the very
thing. Darwin tells us of man who was
driving loaded donkey over one of the
mountains of the Cordilera chain, and
wishing TO make the animal quicken his
pace, took up stone to throw at it. Think
ing the stone heavy, he picked it up again
TO examine it, and to his astonishment found
it full of pure silver! The man though
brute, was something of philosopher he
judged that there was more of the precious
ore where this had come from, and began
10 search for the vein; for the joint action
Of the sun and rain wears down the rocks.
and sets free portions of the precious met
ais embedded in them, which roll down in
10 the valleys below. He was rewarded
Tor his search by finding the vein of silver
at no great distance, standing up in the
orm of wedge out of the bare mountain
iide. This was no other than the famous
nine Of Chanuncillo, from which silver 10
he extent of several hundred thousand
pounds was raised in the course of few |
'ears.
Lucky accidents have been no less favor
bile to the cause Of science. Glass was
irst discovered by accident, at least SO
Pliny tells us, and his account is generally
eceived as the most probable. /" Some
he writes, "who had cargo of
itram, (salt, or, as some have supposed,
oda,) on board, having landed on the banks
{ the river Belus, small stream at the
ase of Mount Carmel in Palestine, and
nding no stones to rest their pots upon,
laced under them some masses of nitrum.
'hich being fused by the heat with the
and of the river, produced liquid and /
ansparent stream such was the origin Of ,
lass" In process of time glas. developed ,
self into the form of spectacles, and so {
SISTED defective vision and at this stage {
gave birth to the telescope.
Ii seems scarcely credible that that won
-riu', far-seeing instrument, which brings /
'e most distant worlds under our curious |
IN, should have had It's oii ;in in children's