ACCIDENTS AND INVENTIONS

Shannon News, 8 January 1926, Page 1

ACCIDENTS AND INVENTIONS

somk oumous CASES. DIAMONDS AND GREASE. When the Prince of Wales visited i Kimbsrley recently he was shown 'the | grease procss of extracting the very < last diamond from the sticky mess [in which it is hidden. This used to'l bo a hopeless job, but on* morning an engine , hand thrust his greasesmeared fingers into, the diamondpaste, and thus accidentally discovered that an admixture of grease caused | the diamonds to remain behind when j the water washed away the . waste material in which they were embedded. It is possible that more useful : discoveries and inventions have been ma.de by accident than by design. Thepointed spade or shovel was the re., suit of a workman grinding off the p.ornery of his square" spade when digging stiff clay. Jt brought him a fortune, says a writer in "Tit.bits." The burning of a starch factory -on , the banks- of the Liffey . first revealed the adhesive qualities of scorched starch mixed 'with water,'and introduced to the world a new and cheap gum. , ■; ; To the upsetting, by William Mur--Aden, of a'\ tool-chest, we are indebted for cast.iron cement; and the ac. eid.ent of a child "playing with a bottomloss flask. which hisT brother, a Swiss mechanic named Argftnd, placed over 'the flame of his crude oil lamp, resulted, in the invention of the lamp chimney. A Nuremberg gla.ss cuttnr accidentally let some aqum testis jdrop on his spectacles, and etching on glass quickly followed. ,/ 'Automatic Signalling, /v The inventor of automatic signalling on railways , got his idea of track-circuiting from a spirit-rap. ' ping, seance. He found that the table stood on two brass rails run. ning across the stage, and immediately suspected the use of electricity. Taking a piece of insulated -wire, the ends of which were open, he laid it across the two rails and the spirit ceased to "rap." ' ' ' Years afterwards, when he was a signal engineer .this early experiment recurred to his mind, and he used theMdea for the protection of millions of railway passengers. A traveller through the Yellow, stone Park stumbled on a~ dead horse' The animal had been lying-there for a long-time, but was wonderfully pre-' served. On examining the carcase It was found to be covered with borax, hitherto used only in glazing linen, but destined to become .one of the most itseful chemical' in industry .through'' this accidental discovery of its preservative qualities.The placing together of twq spec, tacle glasses by the children of a I'mteh optician h-d to Galileo's construction of tho first telescope, and a mere accident helped Senefelder to the invention of lithograph. • One day, when lie was polishing on a stone for etdning, his mother asked .him to write out-a. list, of the linen that the laundress was .waiting to carry.* No paper being, available, he wrote'the list on .the stone in some printing ink. . , A ; few days later,, when he was about to rub the writing off the stone, he thought he would try the effect of. writing on stone bitten in with aqua fortis. He bit away'several impress, ions "of the writing, and discovered he had invented the, ,urt of , lithography. Fortune Came From Fluke. A lucky accident laid- the foundation of the. Nobel fortune. Alfred •Nobel was assisting'his father in the manufacture of ntiro.glycerine, when in'■lß6',' ho discovered a cask leaking and some of •the nitro-glycerine mingling with t,he siliceous sand used ' for packing. .This trivial circ.um. stance suggested o method of preparing a . safe and manageable ex- . plosive, and' the result was .dynamite. A young Bolten . out for an evening stroll, noticed that tho seeds of a sycamore falling to the ground acquired a rotary motion' as they fell. Ife noticed further, that the two wings were turned in opposite direcions. This provided the lirst idea of the i.crew.propeller.