Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1870-11-18
Discoveries made by Accident.,N

sciences have been made or suggested by
accident. The use of the pendulum,
suggested by the vibrating of chande-
lier in cathedral the power of steam,
intimated by the oscillating of the lid of
tea-kettle; the utility of coal-gas for
light, experimental upon by an ordinary
tobacco-pipe of white clay; the magni-
flying property of the lens, stumbled up
on by an opticians apprentice while
holding spectacle-glasses between his
thumb and finger-are well-known in-
stances in proof of the fact.
Galvanism was discovered by accident.
Professor Galvani, of Bologna, in Italy,
gave his name to the operation, but his
wife is considered as actually entitled to
the credit of the discovery. She being
in bad health, some frogs were ordered
for her. As they lay upon the table,
skinned, she noticed that their limbs be-
came strongly eonvulsed when near an
electrical conductor. She called her hus-
bands attention to the fact he institut-
ed series of experiments, and in 1889
the galvanic battery was invented.
Eleven years later with that discovery
for tbs basis, Professor Alessandro Volta
also an Italian, announced his discovery
of the "voltaic pile"
The discovery of glass-making was ef-
fected by seeing the sand vitrifed upon
which fire had been kindled.
Blancourt says that the making of
plate-glass was suggested by the fact of
a workman happening to break cruci-
BILE filled with melted glass. The fluid
ran under one of the large fagstones with
which the floor was paved, On raising
the stone to recover the glass, it was
found in the form Of plate, such as
could not be produced by the ordinary
process of blowing.
Glass pearls, though among the most
beautiful, inexpensive, and common or
naments worn by ladies, are produced
by very singular process. In 1856,
Venetian named Joaquin, discovered that
the scales of fish, called bleak fish,
possessed the property of communicating
pearly hue to the water. He found by
experimenting, that beads dipped into
this water assumed, when dried, the ap-
pearance of pearls. 1t proved, however
that the pearly coat when placed outside
was easily rubbed off; and the next i'm
provement was to make the beads hol-
low. The making of these beads is car
ried on to this day in Venice. The beads
are all blown separately. BY means of
small tube, the insides are delicately
coated with the pearly liquid, and
waxed coating is placed over that. 1t
requires the scales of four thousand fish
to produce half pint of the liquid, to
which small quantity of sal-ammonia
and isinglass are afterward added.
Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff man.
ufacturer, originally kept small tobac-
conist shop at Limerick. One night his
house, which was uninsured, was burned
to the ground. As he contemplated the
smoking ruins, on the following morning
in state bordering on despair, some of
the poor neighbors, groping among the
embers for what they could find, stumb-
led upon several canisters of unconsum-
ed, but halfbaked snuff, which they tried
and found it so pleasant to their noses
that they loaded their waistcoat pockets
with it. Lundy Foot, aroused from his
stupor, initiated their example, and took
pinch of his own property when he
was struck by the superior pungency 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 place called Black Yard, erected
ovens, and set about the manufacture of
that high dried commodity which soon
became widely known as BACKYARD
snuff. Eventually he took a larger
in Dublin, and, making his customers
pay literally through the nose, amassed
a great fortune by having been ruined.
-Oliuer Optics Magazine.