The Placer herald., 1870-10-08
Discoveries made by Accident.

Not few discoveries in the arts and sci
ences have been made or suggested by ac-
cident. The use of the pendulum, suggest
ed by the vibrating of chandelier in a ca
thedral the power of steam, intimated by
the oscilating of the lid of a tea-kettle; the
utility of coal gas for light, experimental on
by an ordinary tobacco pipe of white clay
the magnifying property Of the lens, STUN
bled upon by an opticians apprentice while
holding spectacle-glasses between his thumb
and finger--are we'll known instances in proof
of the fact.
Galvanism was discovered by accident.
Professor Galvani, 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 became very strongly convulsed
when near an electrical conductor She
called her husbands attention to the fact he
instituted a series Of experiments, and in 1S4o
the galvanic battery was made.
Eleven years later, with that discovery
for his basis, Professor Alessandro Qalta
also an Italian, announced his discovery OF
the "votaic pile.
The discovery of glass-making was effect
ed by seeing the sand vitrifcd upon which a
fire had been kindled.
Blagcort says that the making of plate
glass was suggested by the fact of a work
man happening to break a crucibe filed with
melted glass. The fluid ran under one of
the large flag stones with which the floor
was paved. On raising the stone to recover
the glass, it was found in the form of a plate,
such as could not be produced by the ordn-
AIRY process of blowing.
Glass pearls, though among the most
beautiful, inexpensive and common orna-
ments worn by ladies', are produced by a
very singular process. In 1856, a Venitan,
named Joaquin, discovered that the. scales of
a fish, called bleak-fsh, possessed the quail
ty of communicating a pearly hue to the wa
ter lie found by experimenting, that beads
dipped into this water assumed when dried !,
the appearance of pearls. 1t proved, how
ever, that the pearly coat when placed out
side, was easily rubbed off; and the next i'm
provement was to make the beads hollow
The making Of these beads is carried on until
this day in Venice. The beads are all blown
separately. BY means of a small tube, the
insidcs are delicately coated with the pearly
liquid, and waxed coating is placed oven
that. 1t requires the scales of four thousand
fish to produce half a pint of the liquid, to
which small quantity of sal-ammona and
isnglass are afterwards added.
Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff manu-
facturer, originally kept small tobacconist
shop at Limerick On one night his house
which was uninsured, was burned to the
ground. As he contemplated the smoking
ruins Oh the following morning, in a state
bordering on despair, some of the poor neigh
bors, groping among the embers for what
they could find, stumbled upon several can
isters of unconsumed but half baked 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 Acting upon the hint
he took another house IN place called Black
Yard; erected ovens, and set about the man
ufacture of that high dried commodity which
soon became known as Black Yard snuff
He eventually took large house in Dublin,
and, making his customers pay literally
through the nose, amassed a great fortune
for having been ruined. .-Olirc' optic S
Magazuie.