THE INVENTION OF THE TELESCOPE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2448, 10 November 1886, Page 2

THE INVENTION OF THE TELESCOPE.

o*j— ~W> Some of the most importafcovaries have been made accidentally; and it has happened to moro than one inventor, who has long been searching after gome new • combination or material for awryinz out a pet idea, to hit upon the right thing, at last by mere chance. A strikiw instance of this kind was.the discovery of th.6 principle of the telescope. NoaArthre* hundred years ago there wag livine% tb own of Middleberg, on the Island of Waloheren, in the Netherlands, t | poor optican named Hans Lipper'fef, 0n » %' m the few" W , W , M - worklD 8 k his ' h °P. W« children helping Mm in various small ways, or romping about and aniUßinß themselves witli thetoslsand objects lying on his _ workbench, when suddenly his little girl exclaimed," 0, father dear I sea how near the steeple comes I" - Half startled by this atmounoomont, the honest Hans looked up from his work, ourioua to know the cause of the child's amazeraout, Turning towards her, he saw that she was looking through two %es, on» held close to her eye, and thjfother at armalongthj and, calling hFdaughter to his side, he noticed'that the eye-lew was plano-concave (of flat on one side and hoUowed out on the other) while the on*, heldatadistaucewas plauo convex (ori flat on on one side aud bulged out on thai other). Then, taking the two glasses, h«i repeated his daughter's experiment, and rVu ? ced that she hsdohanced to hold the lonses apart at their exact focus and this W m m i the wonderful object that ih7 had observed. His ouick wit and skilled invention saw in this accident, a wonderful disocvery. He immediately aet about making use of his new knowledge of lenses, and ere long he. had fashioned a tube of paßfceboard, in which he aet the glasses firmly at their exact focus. This rough tube was the uerra of that great instrumonttho telescope to which modem science owos so much. And it was on October 22,1608, that Lippersheim sent to his Government three telescopes made by himself, calling them "instruments by moans of which to see at a distance" Aot long aftorwards, another man, Jacob Admim, or MetiusAof Alkmaar, a town about twenty i m from Amsterdam, claimed to have the principle of tho telescope two years earlier than Hans Lippersheim ; and it is generally acknowledged that to one of these two men belongaithe honour of inventing the instrument. But it seems certain that Hans Lipperaheim had nover known or heard of bheducovory made by Admnw, and so, if Adrians had not livod we still Bhould owe to Hans tippersheims quick wit, and hiJ&la daughters luoky meddling, oneflSfhs most valuable and wonderful of human inventions.