American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-06-06

| glass was cOrroded and SOftened where
the aqua forts 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 corroding fluid, cut away the glass
around his drawing, so that when he re-
moved the varnish the figures appeared
raised upon a dark ground, and etching
upon glass was added to the ornamental
arts.
Alois Senefelder, playwrig ht and actor,
think ing it possible to etch upon stone in
lieu of copper, polished a slab for the
purpose. He was disturbed by his moth
er coming into his small laboratory with
Il request that he would jot down her list
of things for the wash, as the woman was
waiting to take the basket away. There
being neither paper nor ink handy, Sene-
fielder scrubbed the items on his stone
with his etching preparation, that he
might copy them at his leisure. Some
time atterward, when about TO clean the
stone, he Thought he might as well see
what would be the effect of biting the
| stone with aqua FORTS, and in a few min
utes saw the writing standing out in re-
lief. Taking up a pelt-ball charged with
printing-ink, he linked the stone, took off
few impressions upon paper, and he
had invented photography. The pelt-ball
used by Senefe.der was long indispensa-
bic in a printing office. A Salopian
printer, in hurry to get off a job, could
not find his bali, and linked his form with
| a 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 of which printers rollers
have ever since been made.
Three very different discoveries are
recorded to have resulted from the unin-
| territorial application of intense heat
Pliny attributes the discovery of glass to
some merchants travelling with inter, who,
stopping on the banks of river to takea
meal, were at loss for stones to rest their
kettles upon. Putting them upon piec es
| of inter- they kindled their fires; the inter
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 had for years expert
mented in vain, hoping to deprive india
rubber of its susceptibility to the action
of heat and cold. Conversing with
| friend on the subject, he emphasized an
| assertion by tlinging piece of sulphured
| rubber across the room. 1t lighted upon
| the stove; and when he picked it up,
| few days afterward he found the intense
heat to which it had been subjected had
4
quality he had SO long striven to impart
10 it. According To some, he stumbled
! upon the discovery in different manner;
but, at any rate, vulcanized india-rubber
was the creation of an accident.
4 Limerick tobacconist looking dole
fully at his poor neighbors cropping
among the smoldering ruins of his
burned-out shop noticed that some Of
| them, after trying the contents of certain
can ful1 y aI
coat pockets from them. He follOed
suit, and found the snuff had come out of
the fiery ordeal very much improved IN
pungency and aroma. Like a wise man
he said nothing, but took another place,
set up lot of ovens, and before long
Black Yard Snufr-otherwse Irish
ackguard"-was all the rage with lovers
of nasal Utilization; and in few years
Lundyfoot was a rich man, owing to the
accident he thought had ruined him.
| A would-be alchemist, seeking to dis
cover what mixture of earthS would make
the strongest crucibles, one day found he
had made porcelain. Instead of trans
muting metals as he had fondly hoped to
do, Bottger transmitted himself: as if
he had been touched with conjurers
| wand, he was ON sudden transformed
| from an alchemist into potter"
| Cornelius Drebbel placed in his win
| dow some extractor cochineai with which
he intended to fill thermometer; into
this some aqua regia dropped from bro
ken phial standing just above it, and
Drebbel's purple liquid was converted
into a beautiful scarlet one. How this
came to pass puzzled him not little, but
he ascertained that the aqua regia had
dissolved some of the tin of the window
frame on its way to the cochineal. Tell
ing this to his sOn-in-l law, Kuffelar, dyer
at Leyden, the latter turned the informa
| ton to such good account that Kuffelar's
| Color" rs it was called, proved a little
gold mine to its godfather.
Beckmann says: Through the means
of Colbert, one of the Gobelins learned
the process used for preparing the German
scarlet dye from one Gluck, and the Pa
risian scarlet dye soon rose into so great
repute that the populace imagined that
Gobelin had acquired his art from the
! devil - all because Drebbel chose to
make use of Il broken bottle.
| Mrs East, the wife of an English paper
maker, is said to have been the first pro-
| Queer of blue-tinted writing paper. Going
among the watts while the workmen were
| away Tor their dinner-hour, she let blue
bag tall into one OF them, and, mortified
at the mischief she had done, said not a
| word about the matter. The spoiled pa
per was hidden away in the warehouse
| by the angry paper-maker for four years !;
| then he sent it to his London agent to he
| sold for what it would fetch. The novelty
was admired, and the agent not only sold
the whole stock of blue paper at a high
| price, but asked for more. Then Mrs.
East unbosomed herself, claiming a new
cloak as the reward of her fortunate care
| lcssness; and her husband was enabled
for a while to reap a rich harvest, until
the demand became so great that other
makers devised means for the same end,
and manufactured blue paper as matter
of course.
Even those now necessary utilities,
| envelopes, originated accidentally. A
Brighton stationer took fancy for dress
| ing his window with piles of writing
paper, rising gradually from the largest to
| the smallest size in use, and to finish his
| pyramids nicely he cut cards to bring
| them TO IA point Taking these cards for
diminutive note paper, lady customers
were continually wanting some of -" that
dear little paper" and the stationer found
| il advantageous to cut some paper to the
desired pattern. But then there was no
space for addressing the notelets when
they were folded; and after much cogita-
| ton he invented the envelope, which he
cut with the aid of metal plates made for
| the purpose. The sale increased so rap
| idly that he was unable to produce his
envelopes fast enough; so he commits
| stoned dozen houses to make them for
him, and thus set going an important
branch OF the manufacturing stationery
| trade.
a poor clergyman, proud as he was
poor, was part owner of "A barren piece of
| nd far. trh mol zion, wa i'm trn., tNy