The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1907-09-13
SLEEP WORKERS.
Wonders Done by Famous Men During
Slumber.

Some people are not satisfied with
having done fair days work at their
regular occupation, but insist upon
keeping busy, even while they sleep.
Most of this work, done uncons-
ciously during the dead hours of the
night, is worth less, but sometimes
intellectual feats are accomplished
during sleep which during waking
hours proved quite impossible.
From his early childhood Robert
Louis Stevenson was a dreamer, and
his dreams were horrible Later in
life he began to dream of journeys
wherein he would see strange towns.
In the next phase he could read in his
sleep, and such wonderful books that
never afterward was he content with
ordinary literature. Lastly he began
to dream in sequence, and he would
continue the dream from the place
where he left off the previous night.
1t is admitted that Stevenson dream
ed the window scene in "Jekyll and
Hyde" and some of his friends are
sure that the central theme of the
strange book came to the author while
he was asleep. Ills brownies showed
it to him in the night"
A pupil of Prof. Won Swinden in
Amsterdam solved difficult problem
in his sleep, after the professor and
ten of the brightest students in the
class had worked for days in the eff.
fort to find the answer. Marquis de
Condorcet, the famous French mathe-
matician, solved problem in int.
grail calculus while he was asleep, al
though the matter had puzzled him
for days. He did not write the an
swer and process down as Won Swim
denis pupil had done, but he remem-
bered the solution that came in his
dream, and put it on paper as soon as
he awoke.
Cabanis, the eminent French ply
sician, says that Franklin told him,
during one of his political missions to
Paris, that over and over again he had
gone to bed puzzled by political events
which became quite clear to him dur
ing his sleep.
Dante is said to have dreamed "The
Divine Comedy" or at least the plot
and characters, and some part Of the
details. This vision appeared to him
when he was only nine years old, &C.
cording to some of the stories, while,
as others tell it, the dream came to
another child during trance which
came with long illness.
Voltaire composed the first canto
of the "FFenriade' while he was asleep.
ideas occurred to me-" he says, Gin
spite of myself, and in which 1 had
no part whatever"
Some useful and prosaic things also
have come from dreams. 1t long has
been known that the making of shot
resulted from an idea that came to a
Bristol mechanic in bis sleep. The
man was employed cutting up strips
of lead, out of which his ferlow-work
men made shot. The process was slow
and expensive. One night this work
man had been drinking, and after he
went to bed he dreamed that it was
raining. AS he watched the rain it
turned to lead, and the earth was
covered with shot. He awoke, and,
filled with his dream, went up into
the tower of st. Mary Radcliffe, in
Bristol, and, melting some lead, pour
ed it out from the top of the tower.
When he went to look for the lead,
he found it had taken the form of shot
Thus the shot tower became fact,
and the workman made fortune out
of his dream.-Chicago Tribune.