82 



INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 



tions of the planets is identified 

 with the name of Laplace, and 

 scarcely any credit is allowed to 

 the important labours of D'Alem- 

 bert, Clairaut, Euler, and Lagrange. 

 Watt is the sole inventor of the 

 steam-engine, whilst Chaptal has 

 enriched the chemical arts with 

 all those ingenious and productive 

 processes which secure their pros- 

 perity." To countervail this error, 

 Arago continues : " Let us hold up 

 to legitimate admiration those 

 chosen men whom nature has en- 

 dowed with the valuable faculty 

 of grouping together isolated facts, 

 and deducing beautiful theories 

 from them ; but do not let us for- 

 get that the sickle of the reaper 

 must cut down the stalks of corn, 

 before any one can think of collect- 

 log them into sheaves." 



A DESCENT IN A DIVING-BELL. 



Sir George Head, in his humo- 

 rous Home Tour, gives an amusing 

 picture of a pair of operative divers 

 whoir he saw in the Hull docks. 

 Sir George was passing as the 

 workmen were raising the diving-- 

 bell, when he stepped into the 

 lighter to observe the state of the 

 labourers on their return from be- 

 low. He had a remarkably good 

 view of their features, at a time 

 when they had no reason to expect 

 any one was looking at .them ; for, 

 as the bell was raised very slowly, 

 he had an opportunity of seeing 

 within it, by stooping, the moment 

 its side was above the gunwale of 

 the lighter. But, Sir George shall 

 relate what he saw : 



" A pair of easy-going, careless 

 fellows, each with a red night-cap 

 on his head, sat opposite one an- 

 other, by no means over-heated or 

 exhausted, and apparently with no 

 other want in the world than that 

 of ' summut to drink ;' they had 

 been under water exactly two 

 hours. .1 asked them what were 

 their sensations on going down? 



They said that, before a man was 

 used to it, it produced a feeling as 

 if the ears were bursting ; that, on 

 the bell first dipping, they were in 

 the habit of holding their noses ; 

 at the same time of breathing as 

 gently as possible, and that thus 

 they prevented any disagreeable 

 effect : they added, the air below 

 was hot, and made a man thirsty ; 

 the latter observation, though in 

 duty bound I received as a hint, I 

 believe to be true ; nevertheless, 

 the service cannot be formidable, 

 as the extra pay is only one shil- 

 ling per day. Had there been 

 anything extraordinary to see be- 

 low, I should have asked permis- 

 sion to go down; but the water 

 was by no means clear, and the 

 muddy bottom of the docks was 

 not a sufficient recompense for the 

 disagreeable sensation. Two men 

 descend at a time, and four pump 

 the air into the bell through the 

 leathern hose ; the bell is nearly a 

 square, or rather an oblong vessel 

 of cast-iron, with ten bull's-eye 

 lights at the top, which lights are 

 fortified within by a lattice of strong 

 iron wire, sufficient to resist an ac- 

 cidental blow of a crowbar, or other 

 casualty. * * Notwithstanding 

 the great improvements made in 

 diving-bells since their invention, 

 after all precautions, a man in a 

 diving-bell is, certainly, in a state 

 of awful dependence upon human 

 aid : in case of the slightest acci- 

 dent to the air-] imp, or even a 

 single stitch of t'.ie leathern hose 

 giving way, long before the pon- 

 derous vessel could be raised to 

 the surface, life must be extinct." 



"WET THE ROPES." 

 The property of cords contract- 

 ing their length by moisture be- 

 came generally known, it is said, 

 on the raising of the Egyptian 

 obelisk in the square feeing St. 

 Peter's, at Rome, by order of Pope 

 Sixtus V. The great work was 



