Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-12-06
DISCOVERIES BY ACCIDENT.

Not few discoveries in tho arts
and sciences have beon made or sug-
gested by accident. The use of the
pendulum was suggested by the vi
brating of chandalier in ca,he-
draI 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 or.
binary tobacco pipe of white clay
the magnifying property of the lens,
stumbled upon by an opticians ap
prentice while holding spectacle
glasses between his thumb and fng
er--are well known instances in proof
of the fact.
Galvanism was discovered by ac-
cident. Professor Galvani of Bolog-
ma, 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 and as they lay upon the table,
skinned, she noticed that their lin BIS
became strongly convulsed when
near an electrical conductor. She
called her husbands attention to the.
fact, he instituted a series of expert
ments, and in 1889 tho galvanic bat
terry was invented.
Eleven years later, with that dis
covery for his basis, Professor Ales-
sandro Volta, also an Italian, an
nounced his discovery of the "voltaic
pile"
The discovery of glass-making was
effected by seeing the sand vitrified
upon which fire had been kindled.
BlancOrt says that the making of
plate-glass was suggested by the fact
of a workman happening to break
crucible filled with melted glass
The fluid ran under one of the large
flag-stones with which the floor was
paved. On raising the stone to re-
cover 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 COM
mon ornaments worn by ladies, are
produced by very singular process.
In 1856, Venitian by the name of
Joaquin, discovered that the scales of
fish, called the black-fish, possessed
the property Of communicating pear
ly hue to the water He found, by
experimenting, that beads dipped in
to this water assumed, when dried,
the appearance of pearls. 1t proved,
however, that the pearly coat, when
placed outside, was easily rubbed off;
and the next improvement was to
make the heads hollow. The making
Of these beads is carried on to this
day in Venice. The beads are all
blown separately. By means Of q
small tube the insides are delicatcly
coated with the pearly liquid, and a
waxed coating is placed over that
1t requires the scales of four thous-
and fish to produce half pint of the
liquid, to which a small quantity Of
sal amoniac and isinglass ale after
wards added.
uundy Root, the celebrated snuff
manufacturer, originally kept q small
tobacco shop at Limerick. One
night his house, which was uninsured,
burned to the ground. AS he con-
templated the smoking ruins on the
following morning, in state border
ing on despair, some OF the poor
neighbors, cropping among the EN-
beIs for what they could find, stun
bled upon several canisters of uncon-
samed 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, imita-
ted their example and took a pinch
OF his own property, which he was
struck by the pungency and flavor it
had acquired from the great heat to
which it had been exposed. Acting
upon the hint, he took house in a
place called Black Yard, erected
ovens, and set about the manufact-
ure Of that high dried commodity
which soon became widely known as
Black Yard snuff. Eventually he
took a larger house in Dublin, and
making his customers pay literally
through the nose, amassed q great
fortune'from having been ruined.