The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1870-12-01

I
Not q few discoveries in the arts
and sciences have been made or sug-
gested By accident. The use Of the
pendulum, suggested BY the Vibrating
Of a chandelier IN "a cathedral; the cow.
er Of steam, intinated by the oscillat-
Ing df. the lid Of a tea-kettle; the util.
ity of coal gas for light, experimented
on by an ordinary tobacco pipe of
white clay; the niHgnifyiHg property
Of the lens, stumbled upon, BY an optic.
ian's apprentice while holding speetaa
eie-gl glasses between his thumb aud fius
ger-are Well-knOWn instances Of tie
fact. .1 es
Galvanism was discovered by ac-
cident. Professor GaIvEHl, Of BoI0gna5
IN Italy, gave bis name to the Opera
ton, but his wife is considered as act-
ualiy entitled to the credit Of the dis
cOvery. She being in bad health,
sOme frogs were ordered for her. AS
they lay on the table, skinned, she noe
tieed that their limbs were strongly
cOnvulsed when near an electric cUn-
ductOr. She called her husbands at
tentiOn 70 the fact; he instituted a So
ries Of experiments, aRd in 1888 the
galvanic battery was invented. f..
Eleven years later, with that discov-
cry for his basis, Professor AlessahdrO
Volta, also an italian, announced his
diseoveryzOf the ''vOltaic pile,'
The discovery Of glass-naking was
effected by seeing the sand vitrifed
upon which a FIRE had been kindled.
Blaneourt says that the making Of
plate-glass was suggested by the fact
of workman happening tO-break q
crucible filed with glass. The fluid
ran under one Of the large hag-stOnes
with which the floor was paved. On
raising the stone to recover the glass,
it was found In the form Of a plate,
suehas could not be prod by theOr-
binary process of blowing. I
Glass pearls, though among the
most beautiful, inexpensive, and COM
mon ornaments worn by the ladies'
are produced by very singular pro-
cess. In 1856, a Venitian, named
Joaquin, discovered that the scales OF
fish, called bleak fish, possessed the
property Of communicating a pearly
hue to the water. He found, by ex-
perimenting, that beads dipped into
this water assumed, when dry, the ap-
pearance Of pearls. It proved, how
ever, that the pearly coat, when plac-
ed outside, was easily rubbed of inl
the next Improvement was to make
the beads hollow. The making Of
these beads is carried on to this day in
Venice. The beads are blown sep
erately, by means Of a small tube,
the insides of which are delicately
cOated with the pearly liquid, and a
wax coating is placed over that. 1t
requires the scales of four thousand
fish to produce a pint Of that liquid, to
which a small amount of sal ammonia
and isinglass are afterwards added.
Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff
manufacturer, originally kept small
tobaccOnist shop at Limerick. One
night his house, which was uninsured,
was burned to the ground. AS be
contemplated the smoking ruins, on
the following morning, in a state
bordering upon despair, some of the
poor neighbOrs gTOPing among the
embers for what they could find, STUN
bIed upon several eanisters Of uncOn-
sumed, but half baked snuff, which
they tried and found it so pleasant to
their noses that they loaded their
waistcoat pockets with it. Luudy
Foot aroused from bis stupOr, initat-
ed their example, and took pinch Of
his own property, when he was struck
by the superior pungeuey and flavor
it had acquired from the great heat
to which it had been exposed. Act
ing upon the hint, he took anOther
house in a place called Black Yard,
erected ovens, and set about the man
ufacture of that high-dried commodity
which soon became widely known as
Black Yard snuff. Eventually he
took larger house in Dublin, aud
making his customers pay literally
through the nose, amassed a great for
by having been ruined.-IOliver Op-
tics Magazine.