ACCIDENTAL INVENTIONS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 261, 21 October 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

ACCIDENTAL INVENTIONS.

Tho bayonet is said to have derived its name from the fact that it was made at Bayonne, and its origin illustrates the proverb, " Necessity is the mother of invention.” A Basque regiment was hard pressed by the enemy on a mountain ridge near Bayonne. One of the so'.diera suggested that, as their ammunition was exhausted, they should fix their long knives into the barrels of their muskets. The suggestion was acted upon. Tho first bayonet charge was made, and the victory of the Basques Jed to the manufacture of the weapon at Bavonne and its .adoption into the armies’ of Europe. Not infrequently an invention has been suggested by some trivial event which would have passed unnoticed had not the man with eyes and brains seen it. Argand, a poor JSwiss, ivoted a lamp with a wick fitted into a hollow cylinder up which a current of air was allowed to pass, thus giving a supply of oxygen io the interior as well as to the exterior of the chcular frame. At first Argand used th.i lamp without any chimney. One day ho was busy in his workroom and sitting before the burning lamp. His little brother was amusing himself by placing a bottomless oil flask over different articles. Presently he placed it upon tho flame of the lamp, which instantly shot u pthe long, circular neck of tho flask with increased brilliancy. Is did more, for it flashed into Argand’s mind the idea of the lamp chimney, by which his invention was perfected. One day the children of a Dutch spectacle maker wero playing with some of their father’s glasses before the door of his shop. Sotting two of the largest glasses together they peened through them, and wero surprised to sec the weather-cock of tho opposite church brought close to their eyes. They called their father to see the strange sight. Ho locked through tho glasses, and what ho saw sugge.ited to him the possibility of constructing a curious toy. Galileo, hearing of the toy which made distant tilings appear close at hand, saw at once what a valuable hein it wouldbe in studying the heavens. He set to work, and soon made the telescope. An accident helped Senefelder to invent lithography. He war. sort of jack-of-all-trades, a writer of verses and comedies, an actor, a fiddler, a painter, an engraver, and a { rinter. Ho worked at etching on cop-j-.er, but the coppersmith refused to let him have any more plates unless he paid cash for them He then tried to idiliso the old plates by rubbing off the etchings v.ith a soft limestone.. ' At last the conpyr became useless through many lubbings, and ho tried etching on the stone, a plan that did not work very well. One day, while ho was polishing off a stone which he intended to etch, i’ii. mother usked him to write out a list of tho linen which the laundress was waiting to carry off. Not finding a slip cf paper or a drop of ink, Senefelder wrote iho lis'; on the stone with some printing ink prepared from wax, soap, and lampblack, intending to copy it al, his leisure. A few days later, when he was .-.bout to wipe tlie writing from the stone, he thought he would learn what v.ould he tho effect of writing with the prepared ink on the stone, if it should !,;• bitten in with aquafortis. He bit awav to about ihe hundredth part of ini iiieh, charged the lines with the ink. took several impressions of the writinf, and discovered that he had invented the art. of lithography.—” Harper's Week-