WONDERS OF MINUTE WORKMANSHIP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 139, 21 April 1879, Page 3

WONDERS OF MINUTE WORKMANSHIP.

In the twentieth year of Queen Bess a blacksmith name'.! Mark Scaliot made a lock consisting of eleven pieces of iron, steel, and brass, all of which, together with a key to it, weighed but one grain of gold. He also made a chain of gold, consisting of 43 links, and, having fastened this to the before-memumecl lock and key, he put the chain about the neck of a flea, which drew them all with ease. All these together, lock and key' chain and flea, weighed only one grain and a half. Oawaldus Northingerus, who was more famous even than Scaliot for his minute contrivances, is said to have made ICOO dishes of turned ivory, all perfect and complete in every part, yet so small, thin, and slender that all of them were included at once in a cup turned out of a pepper corn of the common size. Johannes Shad, of Mitelbrach, carried this work with him to Rome, and showed it to Pope Paul Y., who saw and counted them all by the aid of a pair of spe tacles. They were so little as to be "Jnntf invisible to the eye. Johannes jFerrarius, a Jesuit, had in his possessiontamums of wood, with their carriages, Wheels, and all other military furniture, all of wh.uh were also contained in a pepper-corn of the ordinary size. An artist named Claud Gallus made for Hippolyt'is, d'Eate Cardinal of Ferrara, representatives of sun.lry birds sitting on the tops of trees, which by hydraulic art and secret conveyance of water through the trunks and branches of the trees, were made t'i sing and clap their wings; but at the sudden appearance of an owl out of a bush of the same artifice, they immediately became all silent.