Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-06-10
Rupert to the simple accident of sentry

gun-barrel being rusted by the dew.
Henry Schanward, a Nuremberg glass
cutter, happened to let some aqua-fortis
fall upon his spectacles, and noticed the
glass was corroded and softened where the
aqua-fortis had touched it. Taking the
hint. he made a liquid accordingly, drew
some figures upon piece of glass, covered
them with varnish, and applied his corrod-
ing fluid, cut away the glass around his
drawing. so that when he removed the
varnish, the figures appeared raised upon
a dark ground; and etching upon glass
was added to the ornamental arts.
Alois Senefelder, playwright and actor,
thinking it possible to etch upon stone in
lieu of copper, polished q slab for the pur-
pose. He was disturbed by his mother
coming into his small laboratory with a
request that he would jot down her list OF
thing for the wash, as the woman was
waiting to take the basket away. There
being neither paper nor ink handy, Sene-
fielder scribbled the items on his stone with
his etching preparation, that he might
copy them at his leisure. Some time af-
forwards, when about to clean the stone,
he thought he might as well see what
would be the effect of biting the stone with
aqua-fortis, and in a few minutes saw the
writing standing out in relief. Taking up
Il pelt-ban charged with printing ink, he
linked the stone, took off few impressions
upon paper, and he had invented litho-
graphy. The pelt-ball used by Senefelder
was indispensable in a printing office.
A Salopian printer in hurry to get on
with a job, could not find his ball, and
linked the form with Il piece of soft glue
that had fallen out of the glue pot; with
such excellent results, that he thenceforth
discarded the pelt-ball altogether. and by
adding treacle to the glue, to keep it from
hardening, hit upon the composition by
which printers rollers have ever since
been made.
Three very different discoveries are re-
corded to have resulted from the uninten-
tional application of intense heat Pliny
attributes the discovery of glass to some
merchants travelling with nitre, who stop
ping on the banks of 4 river to take a
meal, were at loss for stones to rest their
kettles upon. Putting them upon pieces
of nitre, they kindled their fires, the nitre
dissolved by the heat, mixed with the sand
and the merchants were astonished to see
a transparent matter flowing over the
ground, which was nothing else but glass.
Charles Goodyear, hoping to deprive
india-rubber of its susceptibility to the ac-
tion of heat and cold. COnversing with a
friend on the subject, he emphasized the
assertion by flinging piece of sulphured
rubber across the room. 1t lighted upon
the stove; and when he picked it up a
few days afterwards, he found the intense
heat to which it had been subjected had
conferred upon the india-rubber Just the
quality he had so long striven to impart to
it. According to some he stumbled upon
the discovery in a different manner; but,
at any rate, vulcanized india-rubber was
the creation Of an accident.
a Limerick tobacconist looking doleful-
ly ut his poor neighbors cropping among
the smouldering ruins of his burned out
shop. noticed that some of them, after try
ing the contents of certain. .cansters, care
fully loaded their waistcoat pockets from
them. He followed suit. and found the
snuff had come out of the fiery ordeal
very much improved in pungency and
aroma. Like wise man, he said nothing.
but took another place, set up !; lot OF
ovens, and before long, Black Yard Snuff
otherwise " Irish Blackguard was all
the rage with lovers of nasal Utilization
and in a few years Lundyfoot was rich
Nan. owing to the accident he thought
had ruined him.
y would-be alchemist seeking to discov-
er what mixture of earths, would make
the strongest crucibles, one day found he
had made a porcelain. Instead of trans
muting metals as he had fondly hoped tc
do, Bottger transmitted himself; AS if he
had been touched with coniuror s wand
he was on sudden transformed from an
alchemist into n potter
Happy accidents have SO often happened
that it would require a volume to do full
justice to the subject. Ere we part with
it, we must cite one more illustration
! that of the man aiming stone at dog
and missing the animal, to hit and Kill his
mother in-l;tw; this famous French writ
ter evidently considered the happiest acci
dent upon record, for he asks confidently
if the lucky stone -thrower had not reason
to say with Menandcr:
BY this see,
Fortune does better aim than wei