The Hawaiian gazette., 1874-09-30
Happy Accidents.


The cracking of picture placed in the sunshine
set Van Eyck experimenting to produce varnish
that would dry in the shade. lie found what he
sought and found besides that by mixing it with his
colors they acquired greater force and brilliancy,
and required no subsequent vanishing, and came
about the discovery, or re-discovery OF the art OF
painting in oil.
Mezzo.tinto owed Its invention by Prince Rupert
to the simple accident of sentrys gun barrel being
rusted by the dew.
Henry Schanward, Nuremberg glass cutter, hap
pened TO let aquaoris fall upon his specacles
and noticed the glass was corroded and softened
where the aquafortis had touched it. Taking the
hint, he made the liquid accordingly drew some
figures upon a piece of glass, covered them with
varnish, and applied his corroding fluid, cut away
the glass around his drawing, so that when he re-
moved his varnish the figures appeared raised upon
a dark ground and etching upon glass was added
to the ornamental arts.
Aois Senefelder, playwright and actor, thinking
1t possible to etch upon stone in lieu Of copper,
polished a slab for the purpose. He was disturbed
BY his mother coming into his small laboratory with
request that he would jot down her lis: of things
for the wash, as the woman waiting to take the
basket away There being neither paper nor ink
handy, Senefelder scrbbled the items on his stone
with his etching preparation that he might copy
them at his leisure. Sometime afterward, when
about TO clean the stone, he thought he might as
well what would be the effect of biting the stone
with aquafort;s, and in few minutes saw the writ
ing standing out in relief Taking up a pelt-ball
charged with prntingink, he linked the stone, took
off few impressions upon paper and he had iu-
vented lithography. TIE pelt- ball used by Sene-
fielder was long indispensable in printing office.
SalOpian printer, in hurry to get with job,
could not find bis ball, and linked his form with
piece of soft glue that had fallen out of the glue
pot with such excellent results that he theneeforth
discarded the pelt-bal altogether. and, by adding
treacle to the glue, to keep it from hardening, hit
upon the composition of which printers rollers
have ever since been made.
Three very different discoveries are recorded to
have resulted from the unintentional application OF
intense heat.
Pliny attributes the discovery of glass to some
merchants travelling with nitre, who, stopping on
the banks of a river to take meal, were at a 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,
aud the merchants were astonished to see a trans
parent matter flowing over the ground which was
nothing else but glass. Charles Goodyear had for
years experimental in vain, hoping to deprive india
rubber of its susceptibility to the action OF heat and
cold. Conversing with a friend on the subject, he
emphasized an assertion by linging piece of sui
phured rubber across the room. Ii lighted upon
the stove; and when he picked it up, a few days
aerward he found the intense heat to which it had
been subjected had conferred upon the india rubber
just the quality he had long striven TO impart to
it. According to some he stumbled upon the dis
coyery in different manner; but, at any rate, vul
canizcd india rubber the creation of an accident
Limerick tohacconist, looking doefully at his
poor neighbors cropping among the smouldering
ruins of bis burned-out shop, noticed that some of
them, after trying the contents of certain canistes
carefully loaded their wastcoat pockets from them.
He followed suit, and found the snuff had come out
of the fiery ordeal very much improved in puugency
and aroma. Like wise he said nothing, but
took another place, set up lot Of ovens and before
long Black Nard snuff, otherwise Irish BLACKBOARD"
all the rage with lovers of nasal Utilization; and
in few years Lundy Foot was a rich man, owing
to the accident he thought had ruined him.
would-be alchemist, seeking TO discover what
mixture of earths would make the strongest cruel
bles, one day found he had made porcelain. In
stead of transmitting morals, he had loudly hoped
to do, Bottger transmitted himself; as If he had
been touched with copjurer's wand, he was on
sudden transformed from an alchcmist into potter
Chambers Journal