Accident 

 Accumulation 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Lloyd and the author, in 1873, when travel- 

 ing in Newfoundland will be easily appre- 

 ciated. At the time to which I refer, my 

 companion was bringing a canoe down the 

 rapids below the Grand Pond in a country 

 which is practically uninhabited, and where 

 an Indian trapper would perhaps be the 

 only person met with, and this not more 

 than once a year. Whilst shooting the 

 rapids one of the Indians, Reuben Soulian, 

 shot at a deer passing up one bank of the 

 river. That the deer had been hit was testi- 

 fied by a trail of blood which bespattered 

 the rocks. Subsequently several more shots 

 were fired, and it was believed by all that 

 the deer was killed. Soulian quickly fol- 

 lowed the animal to the spot where it was 

 supposed to have fallen. Some time after 

 he returned, having failed to find any trace 

 of the animal. He was greatly agitated, but 

 eventually became melancholy, saying that 

 the sudden disappearance of the animal was 

 a sure sign that some of his relations had 

 suddenly died. About two hours afterwards 

 Mr. Lloyd's party met with a party of In- 

 dians coming up the river, the first they had 

 seen for four weeks, who told them that 

 Soulian's sister had just died on the coast, i 

 MILNE Earthquakes, ch. 18, p. 306. (A., I 

 1899.) 



6. ACCIDENT, HAPPY Measurement of 

 Etna Agreement of Masters. In 1815, 

 Captain Smyth ascertained, trigonometric- 

 ally, that the height of Etna was 10,874 

 feet. The Catanians, disappointed that 

 their mountain had lost nearly 2,000 feet 

 of the height assigned to it by Recupero, 

 refused to acquiesce in the decision. After- 

 wards, in 1824, Sir J. Herschel, not being 

 aware of Captain Smyth's conclusions, de- 

 termined by careful barometrical measure- 

 ment that the height was 10,872y 2 feet. 

 This singular agreement of results so differ- 

 ently obtained was spoken of by Herschel as 

 " a happy accident " ; but Dr. Wollaston re- 

 marked that " it was one of those accidents 

 which would not have happened to two 

 fools." LYELL Principles of Geology, ch. 25, 

 p. 396. (A., 1854.) 



7. ACCIDENT LEADS TO IMPORTANT 

 INVENTION Electric Motor the Result of a 

 Workman's Mistake. At an industrial ex- 

 hibition in Vienna, in 1873, a number of 

 Gramme machines were being placed in 

 position, in order to exemplify the various 

 uses to which the invention might be put 

 as an electric generator, when there occurred 

 one of those singularly fortunate accidents 

 which have again and again played so prom- 

 inent a part in the history of industrial 

 progress. In making the electrical connec- 

 tions to one of these machines which had 

 not as yet been belted to the engine-shaft, a 

 careless workman attached to it by mistake 

 a pair of wires which were already con- 

 nected with another dynamo machine which 

 was in rapid motion. To the amazement of 

 this worthy artisan the second machine com- 



menced to revolve with great rapidity in a 

 reverse direction. Upon the attention of M. 

 Gramme being directed to this phenomenon, 

 he at once perceived that the second ma- 

 chine was performing the function of a 

 motor, and that what was taking place was 

 an actual transference of mechanical power 

 through the medium of electricity. This 

 singularly opportune occurrence, being com- 

 mented upon in the scientific journals, led 

 to the instant recognition of the true place 

 of the electric motor in the domain of 

 mechanics. POPE, in Electricity in Daily 

 Life, p. 46. (S., 1893.) 



8. ACCIDENT LED TO THE DISCOV- 

 ERY OF THE EARTH-CIRCUIT The possi- 

 bility of signaling without wires was in a 

 manner forced upon him [Steinheil of Mu- 

 nich]. While he was engaged in establish- 

 ing his beautiful system of telegraphy in 

 Bavaria, Gauss, the celebrated German phi- 

 losopher, and himself a telegraph inventor, 

 suggested to him that the two rails of a 

 railway might be utilized as telegraphic con- 

 ductors. In July, 1838, Steinheil tried the 

 experiment on the Niirnberg-Fiirth railway, 

 but was unable to obtain an insulation of 

 the rails sufficiently good for the current to 

 reach from one station to the other. The 

 great conductibility with which he found 

 that the earth was endowed led him to pre- 

 sume that it would be possible to employ it 

 instead of the return wire or wires hitherto 

 used. The trials that he made in order to 

 prove the accuracy of this conclusion were 

 followed by complete success; and he then 

 introduced into electric telegraphy one of its 

 greatest improvements -the earth-circuit. 

 FAHIE Wireless Telegraphy, p. 3. (D. M. & 

 Co., 1900.) 



9. ACCIDENT REENFORCES SUPER- 

 STITION Profile Portrait Gives Offense to 

 Savages Artist Endangered.^C&tlin ex- 

 cited great commotion among the Sioux by 

 drawing one of their chiefs in profile. 

 "Why was half his face left out?" they 

 asked; " Mahtocheega was never ashamed 

 to look a white man in the face." Mahto- 

 cheega himself does not seem to have taken 

 any offense, but Shonka, The Dog, took 

 advantage of the idea to taunt him. " The 

 Englishman knows," he said, " that you are 

 but half a man; he has painted but one- 

 half of your face, and knows that the rest is 

 good for nothing." This view of the case 

 led to a fight, in which poor Mahtocheega 

 was shot; and as ill-luck would have it, the 

 bullet by which he was killed tore away 

 just that part of the face which had been 

 omitted in the drawing. This was very un- 

 fortunate for Mr. Catlin, who had great 

 difficulty in making his escape, and lived 

 some months after in fear for his life; nor 

 was the matter settled until both Shonka 

 and his brother had been killed in revenge 

 for the death of Mahtocheega. AVEBUBY 

 Prehistoric Times, ch. 14, p. 505. (A., 1900.) 



