The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-09-26
GREAT DISCOVERIES By ACCIDENT.

laH his time to ascertain how indi.
rubber could be treated so that
would neither stifen by cold No
melt by heat. AS everybod
kno~s'he succeeded, but It was a
ter q $keasand mistakes, aud at
time Ehan he was not experiment
ling. Gestic1lating earnestly q
he stood near 9 bar-room stove on
winters day, he let, fall on tn
heated surface q piece of india
rubber and sulphur, which he ha,
been rolling i'm his hand. Upol
recovering Il, she found that por
ton OF the little ball had becom
more elastic than before, and, b,
EsubseQuenk trials, that the same
portion was affected neither b.
heat nerlcoIdsa In fact the inter
Tor portion Of the ball had beef
Eulcanized by chance, and from
this trivial nakter, which occurred
IN q country tavern thirty-fouI
years ago, has grown up in thil
and otAef countries q bushes!
that eaplSSs q capital of many
millions Of dollars, and more thar
one hundred Thousand Rorkmen.
4 Again. during the process o
yulesnizfng large Quantities of in
ola rubber, "a residuum of harC
bleek coal Is continually being de
posted. For several years this
reslduum was regarded as useless
and was got rid of by shooting
carloads of it into holes or sink,
ing it in the sea. Observing an
Irish girl QUE day in Woburn
Massachusetts, cleaning cutlery
upon what looked to be a black
stone, Goodyear had the curiosity
to examine it. To his surprise
he found the seeming stone to be
india-rubber coal-not o mineral
at all, but q vegetable. Seeing
that the upper surface of this
novel knife-scourer had not only
been worn smooth by use, but had
taken a brilliant polish, the
thought occurred to him that the
material might answer as a substi-
tute for ivory, bone and horn.
Upon trial, he found that it was
so, and he Immediately took out
in the United States, England and
countries on the continent, many
patents of application; that is,
patents not for the discovery of
the material, but for the discovery
of the uses of the material. Man
ufactuTers saw the advagtages of
the substitute and seized upon it
eagerly. And now it is used the
world over for handles to knives
and surgical instruments; for la
boratory tools; for harness trim
mings and house ornaments; for
buckles and locks; parlor furni-
ture and study conveniences;
combs and backs of hair-bfdshes;
door-knobs and walking canes;
caskets, bracelets and necklaces;
finger-rings and the settings of
precious stones, and 8 thousand
other purposes.
Tradition ascribes the first idea
of the harp to the dried tortoise
shell, and of Tyrian dye to the
purple lips of a mastifF which had
been worsted in a contest with a
shell Ash on the shores of Tyre.
Though these may well be matters
of doubt, there are others which,
to say the least, are probable.
Take, for instance, the story of the
Ph9nician mariners, who happen
ing to make a fire of dry sea-weeds
on sandy shore, found glass in
the ashes. ..-s
The operation of whitening su-
gar was discovered by accident.
All sugar is dark until washed.
Pack some brown sugar in a fun
mel; how is it to be washed?
Clearly not by pouring water upon
it, which would dissolve the crys-
tails, but by letting 1t drain dry.
Such used to be the process. Ten
thousand loaves of sugar, in fun
nels, would sometimes be draining
at once In a Cuban sugar-house.
1t happened at plantation, early
one morning, that old "mammy,"
after feeding the poultry, left the
gate of their yard open. There
had been a shower, and the feet of
the fowl were sticky with clay;
yeG they nevertheless crossed over
to the sugar-house, and entering
at the door, went picking into the
tunnels and depositing moist clay
on their contents. Nobody knew
till then that moist clay gives off
water so sparingly, that it viii
purify sugar without dissolving it.
The hint was taken, experiments
were made, and the fact clearly
ascertained. 1t was enc of the
most curious and useful of chance
discoveries. To this day yellow
and brown sugar in the West In
dies is. whitened by spreading
moist clay over the surface. This
is called ''claying the sugar"
The processes of clarifying su-
gar in the United States and all
over Europe are quite different.
No moist clay, nor clay in any
state, is now used. And yet curl
ously enough, the original name
sticks, sugar that has been whiten-
ed being everywhere called "clayed
sugar."
The metal called cadmium,
which when crystalizea into white
octahedrons is SO beautiful, and
which is also SO useful in the arts
was discovered by very odd
chance. 1t is q custom In Ger
many that the government every
now and then examine druggists
medicines to see if they are pure
The chemical inquisitors whom i
employs went into an apothecary'l
shop in Berlin some years ago, ant
among other articles, tested somt
zinc. 1t was mixed with sulphur
and yet turned yellow. They wer,
Mortified. The druggist was ar
rested, his shop closed, q large fin
was imposed upon him, and b.
was forbidden to trade. Why
because zinc combined with sui
phur is white, while arsenic com
bined with sulphur is yellow
and the experts reported our poo
druggict for having arsenic in hi
zinc. He knsw it could not be &c
however, and he employed Pro
If-ssor Stronger to analyze II
who discovered the new metal cad
MUM, to be the cause Of the yel
low. This white, brilliant, tin.rs
sembling metal, from which cad
MUM yellow comes is now regu
larly extracted from ores of zinc.
| There is color made and use
at the famous Gobelin manufae
tory in Paris, called the Goheli
red dye. 1t was at one time in >
: great repute that the popnlac
! thought it must have been Obtain
ed from the evil one. It was 81
cidentally discovered by that cd