SOME MICROSCOPIC MARVELS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10671, 21 January 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

SOME MICROSCOPIC MARVELS.

Of all the wonders which men have made, the smallest things arc probably the most remarkable. It is nuicr. ■easier to comprehend the building of ;> -colossal structure, with the strength I and the herculean labor winch it inquires, than to bring the is-i'd down to the microscopic diminuti.-cme ; s of voik 1 produced under the Las by men who had a-genius for that v.it :>I thing. Every age has had .ts ii.*rv.?ls m this particular, and it would bo h.'-'fd to aecide which should be proumnoed the greatest. , _. In the twentieth year ol Queen Elizabeth a blacksmith named MarK facauct made a lock, consisting or el-iven pieces of iron, steel, and brass,, all of w.lien, together with a key, weighed out one gram of gold. He also made■*• chain of gold, consisting of 43 links, and, having fastened this to therefore-mentioned 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 gram and a-half. Oswaldus Norhingerus, who was more famous even than Scakotv. for . his. minute contrivances, is said, to have made 1600 dishes of turned ivory,- all perfect and cbmpletein eyerj-part yet so slender, tfhat all of them were included at oncQ. in a .cup turned, out ai. a peppercorn bf common SL fohannes Shad, of Mitelbrace,;Jcarr|ed tins wond : erful,;vork with linn; to.Kome/ and showed it to Pope Paul V., who saw and counted them all by the aid of a pair, of spectacles.. They-.were, so little as to be almost invisible to the 6> Johannes Farrarius, a Jesuit,, had .in his possession cannons of wood, with their carriages, wheels, and all other military furniture, all of which were also contained in a peppercorn ol the ordinary size. . There is a cherry-stone in a. Massachusetts museum which contains-a dozen silver spoons. The stone itself is of the ordinary size; but the spoons are so small that their shape and finish can be 'well -■distinguished only by the microscope. . . c Dr OUver gives an account cherry-stone on which were carved IJ4 heads, so distinctly ;that the naked, eye -could ;dUsftnguistiJ those? 'belonging to popes; and, kings? hy Mieir and crowhsTV It was'hbughf m Prussia for £3OOO, and thenco conveyed to England, where it was considered an object of so much value that its possession was disputed, and it became the object of '"a. suit in.-, chancery; V '% , ; i':., : j ; -One of 3 the; Niiremburg toy-makers; enclosed '■■ in, a'cherrystone, which- was; exhibited at the French Crystal Palace, a plan of'Sebastopol, a railway station, and the "Messiah" of Klopstock. . In more remote times an account is given of. an. ivory chariot, constructed by Mermecides, ; wliich was.sb.small;i;hat a fly could cover it with Tn's. wings ;,also a ship of the same-material, which could !"be hidden under the wing of a bee. Pliny, too, tells us that Homer s "Iliad,"- with' its 15,000 verses, was written in so small a space as to be contained in a nutshell, while Ekan:;mentions -an artist who wrote a distich in letters, of gold, which he enclosed in the rind of a kernel 1 of corn. "-. ,;;.?. But the Harleian MS. mentions a greater curiosity.-than any of the above, it being nothing>more nor less than the Bible; written :by one Peter Bales, a. chancery clerk, in so small a book that it could be enclosed within the shell of an English walnut. v ■A writer describes the smallest engine that has ever been made. It seems incredible that "such an atom of construction could be handled and put together. It is made of gold and steel, and is so small that a common housefly seems, large in comparison. It fits easily into the smallest .22 short cartridge, balancerwheel. and .all.; ■'lt'■•weighs-"just four' grains complete,' which is about the weight of - a-com-mbnTnatch. It takes one hundred and twenty such engines to weigh one ounce, almost two thousand to weigh a pound, ■and- more than, three million to weigh a ton; .- -.--•' •■ - ■ .■•'"- , '■'■''■- '. ; i-, The-engine-bed and stand are of gold, the shaft runs in hardened, and ground steel bearings inserted-.in the. gold bed. These bearings are counter-bored from the inside to form a self-oiling bearing. The fly-wheel -has -,a half-steep centre and arms, with- a gold'rim,- and this part—-the complete wheel —weighs, onegrain-. .- : ; --■- ■ '"- The cylinder is of steel with octagonal base highly polished. The stroke js one-thirty : sec6nd' of ah inch; bore, three-bhe-hundredths ,of an inch. Seventeen pieces are used..hi the . construction of this engine. ■ ■ .- ■';;. The feed is through the; gold base, which is hollow.. The speed'.of;' : this engine is six thousand revolutions per minute. When running .one. hundred per second no "motion.is .visible to the eve, but'it makes a note like the noise of a mosquito, caused by the vibrating pis'tonrod; ■'"■,.K',nii«,i' c The horse-power is 489-1000ths of one horse-power. Gompressed air. is-used to run it, and it may be of interest; to : note '-that.-the'-amount.-of air pressure required to make -it- hum, can easily ;be born oh the eyeball -withdut; winking-. : . There is a naturalist; whose hobby _is collecting; the'fine. ; dust:with whiChcthe wings of-moths and ■ butterflies .s are covered and forming: it ; ; into, the.: most .artistic. .picturesque; designs, JAe ' mounts each-single, gram-of dust, separately, so: as to -make.bouquets.: ot flowers, fern leaves,- aud.: ■.-butterflies hovering .round. This ho .does m the space occupied, by the eighth of an another design he has a vase of passion flowers' made of upwards of fave hundred grafas. of .dust;. and he has represented a pot ;of fuchsias, with butterflies and birds, in. three sixteenths of a: square inch., .. ..... y. . . 'This marveUons- mounting in miniature will-be more .readily understood when it. is mentioned, that there are so many single, grains .of dust on a butterfly's wing that' no man.has succeeded in'lcounting them. .- , ■ The same naturalist mounted a couple of hundred of = the .tiniest eggs of the smallest insect's so as. to make a perfect ; the whole did not" cover the. space of a quarter ot an inch 4h'diameter; "while another ardent 1 -naturalist .selected and arranged three" thousand six 'hundred young oystOTs":within a circle- a; little less -than of an inch in diameter. -• • The ; micrbscope-has made possiblethe' - fiiie which these things require'as well as the wonderful modern i machinery; The smallest lioles pierced by modern machinery are bne-thousahdth:of. ah : inch m diameter.