521 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



RSI 



stence 



child made a similar use of the word " star " 

 the gas, the candle, the firelight were each 

 " a star." If the makers of language pro- 

 ceeded on this principle, no wonder the 

 philologist has riddles to read. How often 

 must the savage children of the world have 

 started off naming things from two such 

 different points ! DRUMMOND Ascent of 

 Man, ch. 5, p. 171. (J. P., 1900.) 



2565. PERSEVERANCE OF INVENT- 

 OR Courage of Conviction Self-sacrificing 

 Enthusiasm. Somewhere about the time 

 that Herschel set about polishing his first 

 speculum, Pierre Louis Guinand, a Swiss 

 artisan living near Chaux-de-Fonds, in the 

 canton of Neuchatel, began to grind spec- 

 tacles for his own use, and was thence led 

 on to the rude construction of telescopes by 

 fixing lenses in pasteboard tubes. The sight 

 of an English achromatic, however, stirred 

 a higher ambition, and he took the first op- 

 portunity of procuring some flint-glass from 

 England (then the only source of supply), 

 with the design of imitating an instrument 

 the full capabilities of which he was des- 

 tined to be the humble means of develop- 

 ing. The English glass proving of inferior 

 quality, he conceived the possibility, un- 

 aided and ignorant of the art as he was, of 

 himself making better, and spent seven 

 years (1784-90) in fruitless experiments di- 

 rected to that end. Failure only stimulated 

 him to enlarge their scale. He bought some 

 land near Les Brenets, constructed upon it 

 a furnace capable of melting two quintals of 

 glass, and reducing himself and his family 

 to the barest necessaries of life, he poured 

 his earnings (he at this time made bells 

 for repeaters) unstintingly into his cru- 

 cibles. His undaunted resolution tri- 

 umphed. In 1799 he carried to Paris and 

 there showed to Lalande several disks of 

 flawless crystal four to six inches in diam- 

 eter. Lalande advised him to keep his se- 

 cret, but in 1805 he was induced to remove 

 to Munich, where he became the instructor 

 of the immortal Fraunhofer. His return to 

 Les Brenets in 1814 was signalized by the 

 discovery of an ingenious mode of removing 

 striated portions of glass by breaking and re- 

 soldering the product of each melting, and 

 he eventually attained to the manufacture 

 of perfect disks up to 18 inches in diameter. 

 An object-glass for which he had furnished 

 the material to Cauchoix, procured him, in 

 1823, a royal invitation to settle in Paris; 

 but he was no longer equal to the change, 

 and died at the scene of his labors February 

 13 following. CLEBKE History of Astron- 

 omy, pt. i, ch. 6, p. 142. (Bl., 1893.) 



2566. PERSEVERANCE OF SCIENCE 



The grand campaign [for world-wide ob- 

 servation of the transit of Venus, 1874] 

 had come to nothing. Nevertheless, no sign 

 of discouragement was apparent. There 

 was a change of view, hut no relaxation of 

 purpose. The problem, it was seen, could 

 be solved by no single heroic effort, but by 



the patient approximation of gradual im- 

 provements. Astronomers, accordingly, 

 looked round for fresh means, or more re- 

 fined expedients for applying those already 

 known. A new phase of exertion was en- 

 tered upon. CLEEKE History of Astronomy, 

 pt. ii, ch. 6, p. 292. (Bl., 1893.) 



2567. Fossils Found 



after Ten Years' Search. Immediately 

 above the conglomerate there is a hundred 

 and fourteen feet more of coarse sandstone 

 strata, of a reddish yellow hue, with oc- 

 casionally a few pebbles enclosed, and then 

 twenty-seven feet additional of limestone 

 and stratified clay. There are no breaks, no 

 faults, no thinning out of strata all the 

 beds lie parallel, showing regular deposition. 

 I had passed over the section twenty times 

 before, and had carefully examined the lime- 

 stone and the clay, but in vain. On this 

 occasion, however, I was more fortunate. I 

 struck off a fragment. It contained a vege- 

 table impression of the same character with 

 those of the ichthyolite beds; and after an 

 hour's diligent search, I had turned out from 

 the heart of the stratum plates and scales 

 enough to fill a shelf in a museum the hel- 

 met-like snout of an Osteolepis, the thorn- 

 like spine of a Cheiracanthus, and a Coccos- 

 teus well-nigh entire. I had at length, after 

 a search of nearly ten years, found the true 

 place of the ichthyolite bed. MILLER The 

 Old Red Sandstone, ch. 7, p. 121. (G. & L., 

 1851.) 



2568 Kepler and the Orbit 



of Mars. It was this great eccentricity [of 

 the orbit of Mars] which led Kepler to dis- 

 cover the true form of the planetary orbits, 

 till then considered as perfectly circular; he 

 took no less than seventeen years of labor 

 to attain it, and very often" he despaired 

 of success. FLAMMARION Popular Astrono- 

 my, bk. iv, ch. 4, p. 374. (A.) 



2569. PERSISTENCE, GENUINE AND 

 SPURIOUS Decision of Character. There 

 is no more remarkable difference in human 

 character than that between resolute and 

 irresolute natures. . . . Whereas in the 

 irresolute all decisions are provisional and 

 liable to be reversed, in the resolute they 

 are settled once for all and not disturbed 

 again. Now into every one's deliberations 

 the representation of one alternative will 

 often enter with such sudden force as to 

 carry the imagination with itself exclusive- 

 ly, and to produce an apparently settled de- 

 cision in its own favor. These premature 

 and spurious decisions are of course known 

 to every one. They often seem ridiculous 

 in the light of the considerations that suc- 

 ceed them. But it cannot be denied that 

 in the resolute type of character the acci- 

 dent that one of them has once been made 

 does afterwards enter as a motive additional 

 to the more genuine reasons why it should 

 not be revoked, or, if provisionally revoked, 

 why it should be made again. How many 

 of us persist in a precipitate course which, 



