CURIOSITIES OF CHANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5333, 10 August 1895, Page 1

CURIOSITIES OF CHANCE.

(Englith Paper.) Many of onr most important inventions and discoveries owe their origin to chance. A Nuremberg glass-cutter happened to let some aqua fortia fall upon his speotacles. »nd noticed the glass was corroded and •of tentd where the aqua forfciß had touched it. Talcing the hint, he made a liquid accordingly, drew some figures upon a piece of glass, covered them with varnish, and applied his corroding fluid, cat away the glass around his drawing, so that, when he removed the varnish, the figures appeared raised upon a dark ground ; and etching upon glasß wag added to the ornamental arts. Pliny attributes the discovery of glass to some merchants travelling with nitre, who, stopping on the banks of a river to take a meal, were at a loss for stones to rest their kettles upon. Putting them upon pieoes of nitre, they kindled their fires j the nitre, dissolved by the heat, mixed with the sand, and the merchants were astonished to see a transparent matter flowing over the ground, which was nothing cue but glass. . Chloroform, which has proved auoh an inestimable boon to thousands Of sufferers, was discovered by chance. Dr Simpson set himself to find some anasthetiototake the place of ether— which had gained a bad name owing to the fact that several deaths had occurred through careless use of it. Other scientists joined him in his researches, and carefully analysed every substance which they thought was in the least likely to give the desired result. One night the party were busily engaged in their eelf-imposed task. They had tested every substance which had been selected for experiment without anything approaching to a favourable issue, and were beginning to feel disheartened by their lack of success. As one of them was poking about the laboratory to see if he could find anything elae which might be put into the little testing glass with which each was provided, he happened upon a small bottle of a dark substance, whioh was looked upon more as a curioaity than as possessing any useful properties. With scarcely a thought of success, he poured a little of it into each of the tubes, and the members of the party began to inhale it. For a few moments they seemed seized with an unusual gladness, but Boon they, one after another, fell to the ground, overcome by the powerful fumes. As they gradually came to again, they recognised that their search was over, and from that occasion dates the use of chloroform as an antithetic. By a chance circumstance wai Galileo* attention directed to the equal duration of the oscillation of the pendulum. Being one day in the cathedral at Pisa, he watched the oscillations of a lamp suspended from the roof. He observed that the swings or vibrations were all performed in equal times, whether the arc of swing were great or small — whether the lamp had only just begun to oscillate, or had nearly finished. Following up the observation when he returned home, he made temporary pendulums of various lengths, any kind of heavy weight suspended by a string; and he found that the time of oscillation for each pendulum bore a definite ratio to the length of the string. Armed with this two-fold knowledge, he virtually gave birth to the application of the pendulum as a regulator of clooks— an invention to whioh the precision of modern astronomy owes so much. If the facts are correctly reoorded, the reflecting apparatus for lighthouses arose out of a wager. Somewhat more than a century ago, among the members of a small scientific sooiecy in Liverpool, one offered to wager that he would read the small print of n newspaper by the light of a farthing candle placed thirty feet distant. The wager being accepted, he coated the inside of a wooden board with pieces of looking-glass, forming a rough substitute for a concave mirror; placing a small lighted candle in front of thiß mirror, the

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rays of light were reflected, and converged to a focus ten yards on the other side of the candle, and the light at that focus was sufficient to enable the experimenter to read a newspaper. Of course, the distance of the candle from the mirror was made dependant) on the curvature of the mirror itself. An observant, practical man, the dock-master of Liverpool, waa present. The idea flashed upon him that if the light of a farthing candle could in this way be thrown ont to a distance, the light of a large lamp could similarly be projected to a mile, or miles, away. The idea grew into form, and resulted in the invention of the reflecting apparatus for lighthouses. The rollers which art used to spread the ink with which newspapers and books are printed are the outcome of an accident. Iv days gone by, felt balls wero uaed for this purpose. A Shropshire printer waa once unable to lay hia hands upon the felt ball with which he wanted to ink the type. He was pressed for time, and caught up the first thing that seemed to him capable of serving the purpose of the missing felt ball. This happened to be a piece of glue, which had fallen from the glue-pot, and which did the work bo effectively that he mentioned his improvisation to his fellowworkmen. Experiments followed, and it was soon discovered that glue, mixed with molasses to give it the requisite consistency, was the best possible article for this purpose. Chance works very favourably at timeß in the acquisition of wealth and property, for those who least expect suoh luck. A Versailles wine-shopkeeper was at work in his cellar, when suddenly the ground gave way, and he fell into what was at first thought to be a well ; but on lights being brought, the hole was found to be the entrance to another wine-cellar, containing some of the best vintages of France and Spain. The wine is said to have attracted connoisseurs from all parts. A farmer in the neighbourhood of Tavistook waß as lucky in another way. In repairing an old mahogany secretaire, knocked down to him at a sale, he discovered a secret drawer, containing forty sovereigns, a gold enamelled ring, and a lot of securities for money, one of which was a certificate for over JBSOO three, per cent consols. ■ ; A Hastings chemist was oven more lucky than the Tavistock farmer, all owing to an acoident that befell a ladj'B pet dog. He treated the animal so sucbessfully that when the gratefnl owner died, which happened not long afterwards, she left the lucky chemist a large fortune, which enabled him to change the cares of busineao for the pleasures of retirement. ,