Curiosities of Chance.

Hastings Standard, Issue 94, 14 August 1896, Page 4

Curiosities of Chance.

Many ot our most important inventions and discoveries owe their origin to ch&ntt. A Nuremberg glass-cutter 1 happened to let some aqua fortis fall . gM hi« spectacles, and noticed the i gUaj WW corroded awi aofteaed wiwre i

the aqua fortis had touched it. Taking the hint, he mult a liquid accordingly, drew some tiguri upon a piece of j3ria-«. cohered them with varnish, and applied his corroding lluid, cut away the triads around hi? drawing, so that, when he removed the varnish, the figures appeared raided upon a dark ground ; and etching upon glass was added to the ornamental arts.

Pliny attributes the discovery _of glass to some merchants travelling with nitre, who, stopping on the banks of a river to take a 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, and the merchants were astonished to see a transparent matter {lowing over the ground, which was nothing else but glass. Chloroform, which has proved such an inestimable boon to thousands of sufferers, was discovered by chance. Pr. Simpson set himself to find some amesthetie to take the place of ether — which had gained a bad name owing to the fact that several deaths had occurred through careless use of it. Other scientists joined him in his researches, and carefully analysed every substance which they thought was in the least likely to give the desired result. One night the party were busily en-

g ■ Ihi tiuir imposed task. They h'llti t substance which had been selected for experiment -without anvthing approaching to a favorable . and were beginning to feel dish iitfuod by their lack of success. As :jf them was poking about the laboratory to see if he could find anything else which might be put into the little testing glass with which each was provided, he happened upon a small bottle of a dark substance, which was looked upon more as a curiosity than as ii _< any useful properties. With scarcely a thought of success, he poured a little of it into each of the tubes, and the members of the party began to inhale it. For a few moments thi-y seemed seized with an unusual gladness, but soon they, one after another, fell to the ground, overcome by the powerful fumes. As they gradually came to again, they recognised that their search was over, and from that occasion dates the use of chloroform as an anesthetic. By a chance circumstance was Galileo's attention directed to the equal duration of the oscillation of the pendulum. Being one day in the cathedral at Pisa, he watched the oscillations of a lamp suspended from the roof. He observed that the swings or vibrations were all performed in equal times, whether the arc or swing were c;reat or small—whether the lamp had only just begun to oscillate, or had nearly finished. Following up the observation when he returned home, he made temporary pendulums of various lengths, any kind of heavy weight suspended by a string ; and he found that the time of oscillation for each pendulum bore a definite ratio to the length of the string. Armed with two-fold knowledge, he virtually gave birth to to the application of the pendulum as a regulator of clocks—an invention to which the precision of modern astronomy owes so much. If the facts are correctly recorded,

the reflecting apparatus for lighthouses arose out of a wager. Somewhat more than a century ago, among the members o! a small scientific society in Liverpool, one offered to wager that he would read the small print of a newspaper by the light of a farthing candle placed 30ft. distant. The wager being accepted, he coated the inside of a wooden board with pieces of looking-glass, forming a rough substitute for a concave mirror ; placing a small lighted candle in front of this mirror, the rays of light were reflected, and converged to a focus 10yds on the other side of the candle, and the light at that focus was sufficient to enable the experimenter to read a newspaper. Of course, the distance of the candle from the mirror was made dependent on the curvature of the mirror itself. An observant, practical man, the dockmaster of Liverpool, was present. The idea flashed upon him that if the light of a farthing candle could in this way be thrown out to a distance, the light of a large lamp could similarly be projected to a mile, or miles, away. The idea grew into form, and resulted in the invention of the reflecting apparatus for lighthouses. The rollers which are used to spread the ink with which newspapers and books are printed are the outcome of an accident. In days gone by, felt balls were used for this purpose. A Shropshire printer was once unable to lay his hands upon the felt ball with which he wanted to ink the type. He was pressed for time, and caught up the first thing that seemed to him capable of serving the purposes of the missing felt ball. This happened to be a piece of glue, which had fallen from the glue-pot, and which did the work so effectively that he mentioned his improvisation to his fellow-work-men. Experiments followed, and it was soon discovered that glue, mixed with molasses to give it the requisite consistency, was the best possible article for this purpose. Chance works very favorably at times in the acquisition of wealth and property for those who least expect such luck. A Versailles wine shopkeeper was at work in his cellar, when suddenly the ground gave way, and he fell into what was at first thought to be a well; but on lights being brought, the hole was found to be the entrance to another wine-celler, containg some of the best vintages of France and Spain. The wine is said to have attracted connoisseurs from all parts. A farmer in the neighborhood of Tavistock was as lucky in another way. In repairing an old mahogany secretaire, knocked down to him at a, sale, he discovered a secret drawer, containing forty sovereigns, a gold enamelled ring, and a lot of securities for money, one of which was a certificate for over £SOO three per cent, consols. A Hastings chemist was even more lucky than the Tavistock turner, all

owing to an accident that befell a a lady's pet dog. He treated the animal so successfully that even when the grateful owner died, which happened not long afterwards, she left the lucky chemist a large fortune, which enabled him to change the cares of business for the pleasures of retirement.