The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1876-12-28
Discoveries Made by Accident.

Not a few discoveries in the arts and
sciences have been made or suggested by
accident. The use of the pendulum,
suggested by the vibrating of chan
delier in cathedral; the power of steam,
intimated by the oscillating of the lid
of tea-kettle; the utility of coal-gss
for light, experimental upon by an or
binary tobacco-pipe of white clay; the
magnifying property of the lens, STUN
bled upon by an opticians apprentice
while holding spectacle-glasses between
his thumb and fDger-are wellknown
instances in proof of the fact.
GalYanism was discovered by acci-
dent. Prof. Galvani, of Bologna, in
Italy, gave his name to the operation,
but his wife is considered as actually en-
titled to the credit of the discovery.
She being in bad health, some frogs were
ordered for her. As they lay upon the
table, skinned, she noticed that their
limbs became strongly conyulsed when
near an electrical conductor. She called
her husbands attention to the fact; he
instituted a series of experiments, and
in 1889 the galvanic battery was in
vented.
Eleven years later, with that discovery
fer his basis, Prof. Alessandro Volta,
also an Italian, announced his discovery
of the "voltaic pile"
The discovery of glass-making was ef-
fected by seeing the sand vitrifed upon
which fire had been kindled.
Blancourt says that the making of
plate-glass was suggested by the fact of
a workman happening to break cruel
bic filed with melted glass. The fluid
ran under one of the large fag-stones
with which the floor was paved. On
raising the stone to recover the glass, 1t
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 common
ornaments worn by the ladies, are pro-
duced by a very singular process. In
1866 Venetian named Joaquin dis
covered that the scales of a FISH called
bleak-6sh possessed the property of COM
municatiDg a pearly hue to the water.
He found by experimenting that beads
dipped into this water assumed, when
dried, the appearance of pearls. 1t
proved, however, that the pearly coat,
when placed outside, was easily rubbed
eff; and the next improvement was to
make the beads hollow. The making of
these beads is carried on to this day in
Venice. The beads are all blown
separately. By means OF small tube,
the insides are delicately coated with the
pearly liquid, and wax coating is
p aced over that. 1t requires the scales
of four thousand fish to produce half
pint of the liquid, to which small
quantity of sal ammoniac and isinglass
are afterward added.
Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff
manufacturer, originally kept a small
tobacconist shop at Limerick. One night
his house, which was uninsured, was
burned to the ground. As he eontem-
plated the smoking ruins on the follow
ing morning in state bordering on de-
spair, some of the poorer neighbors,
cropping among the embers for what they
could find, stumbled upon several canis-
ters of uneonsumed but half-baked
snuff, which they tried, and found
so pleasant to their noses that they soon
loaded their waistcoat pockets with it.
Lundy Foot, aroused from his stupor,
initiated their example and took pinch
of his own property, when he was struck
by the superior puDgency and flavor 1t
had acquired from the great heat to
which it had been exposed. Acting
upon the hint. he took another house in
a place called Black Yard, erected ovens,
and set about the manufacture of that
high-dried commodity which soon be-
came widely known as Black Yard
Snuff. Eventually he took larger house
in Dublin, and, making his customers
pay literally through the nose, amassed
a great fortune by having been ruined.