203 



™ct Avitli some such stoi-y, ami tlioiiglit it interesting enougli to 

 be treasured up in tliat curious di-pot of fact and fancy — his 

 "Natural History." 1 sirajily use it as an illustrative introduc- 

 tion to some examples of accidental discoveiy in Science and the 

 Arts, which I ha\e thouglit it might not' be inappropriate to 

 enumerate to you this evening. 



That glass was in some manner disco\-ered at an early period 

 of the woild's history, is certain. Articles of this mateiual, very 

 sldlluily constructed, have been found in the palaces of Nineveh, 

 and the ancient tombs of Egypt and Italy. The number of 

 glass vessels to be seen in the great Museum "at Naples, collected 

 from the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, is truly 

 astonishing. In that Museum are also preserved numerous frag- 

 ments of /a< glass from the latter place, together with bronze 

 lattice-work with panes of glass actually inserted, proving that 

 glazed windows were by no means unknown eighteen ceutui-ies 

 ago. 



Could we be admitted to the secret history of discoveries and 

 inventions in general, I dare say we should find that many more 

 have originated in what was ajjparently an accident, than we are 

 now aware of. We know that the devotees of the so-called Oc- 

 cult Sciences in the Medi:e\-al period— the Alchemists— the 



transmuters of metals and searchers after the elixir of life lighted 



on facts that tended largely to the development of the real science 

 of Chemistry. 



We have dim_ traditions from the mythological times of the 

 accidental invention of musical instruments. The wind whistles 

 over the sheaf of broken reeds in the arms of the shepherd-god, 



and gives him the idea of the syrinx — the pipes of Pan the 



embryo that grows at length into the noblest perhajis of all musi- 

 cal instnmients— the Church Organ. Again, Hermes stiikes his 

 foot against the shell of the sun-d)-ied toitoise, and the tio-htly- 

 strained tendons give out musical tones. He thus litei-aliy stum- 

 bles on the lyre— the germ of our harp and piano-forte. The 

 colossal statue of Memnon (Amenophis) in Egypt, emits music 

 from its head— cavities in the sculpture producing vibrations in 

 the air. The fact is converted into a miracle, and gives birth to 

 a series of adroit uses of the simple laws of nature for the creation 

 of surprise in the minds of the ignorant. 



Were we living in an age of infantile simplicity, to what myths 

 might we not expect those mj-stic chords to give rise which in 

 these days are so rapidly encircling the earth as with a zone ' 

 Listen to tlie excellent music which they discourse over your 

 heads as you Awlk abroad ! We overlook the phenomenon as a 

 mere trifle— the principle of which, however, might lead us at 

 least to the ^olian Harp— were we not long foiesfalled in that- 

 and are absorbed— and justly so— in the sublimer contemplation 

 of a system of artificial nerves, gradually throwing themselves out 

 over the globe, along which may rush impulses from the will and 

 soul of man. 



Of chance discoveries hinted at in very ancient history I find 

 one or two cases moi-e. The gracefully-curling leaves of an 

 Acanthus plant surrounding a basket left by accident upon it, 

 catch the eye of a .sculptor who has a quick sense of the beautiful 

 A new style of ornament for the column is instantly conceived 

 I he Corinthian capital thenceforward in all after aoes o-ives 

 pleasure to the frequenters of Temple and Forum. Affaiii the 

 hand of affection, on one occasion, is i.rompted to delinc^ate on a 

 wall the shadow of a liead, to be a memento, duriiK^ an antici- 

 pated absence, of the beloved reality. The art of portrait-paint- 

 ing takes Its rise from the circumstance. 



The popular tradition is that the falling of .■in apple fiist sn..- 

 gested to Newton the idea of universal gravitation. (Sir DavTd 

 Brewster, very reasonably, gives uo credence to the story. Still 



ON ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERIES. 



[185J 



we can well imagine the ]ihilosopher in his orchard at Wool- 

 strope, using such a casual occurrence by way of illustration to a 

 friend : — " If this earth be a globe, and what is " up" to us is 

 " down" to our antipodes, why does yonder apple, for example, 

 descend to the surface in preference to rising outwards into 

 space ?" And may we not ask, in connection with Newton, is it 

 not exceedingly likely that the resolution of white light into its 

 component parts by the prism, may have been suggested to him 

 by the beautiful coloui-s which he must often have" seen projected 

 on the walls and ceiling of a room from the crystal drops' of a 

 chandelier ? But questions like this it is easy to put, in the case 

 of almost every invention, after it has taken" place. We are so 

 fortunate as to be put at once in possession of the result, without 

 being obliged so much as to think of the steps which led to it. 

 Still, it is interesting sometimes to conjecture what those steps 

 were. 



The bold stroke of Columbus, by which he caused the egg to 

 stand alone, has become a proverb. Any person visiting^ uovy 

 the heights behind Genoa, and remembering that the great navi- 

 gator was once fomiliar with that scene, can imagine it to be ex- 

 ceedingly natural that he should have discovered America. " If 

 Africa lies yonder, though invisible to the eye, what reason is 

 there, why I should not believe, when I look out on the Atlantic 

 from behind Lisbon, for example, that there is as certainly land 

 to be arrived at, by pei-severing to the West ?" 



By a pleasant train of association, the mention of Genoa and 

 Columbus suggests to me the memory of Pisa and Galileo— with 

 another example of happv accidental discovery. It was in the 

 magnificent cathedral at Pisa that the gentle oscillations of a 

 chandehei gave Galileo (1642) the idea of the application of the 

 pendulum, as a regulator in an apparatus for the measurement 

 of time— a combination that ripened at last into that exquisite 

 piece of mechanism — the Astronomical Clock. 



The recent ingenious experiment ofM. Foucault, to demon- 

 strate to the eye thj motion of the earth, was the result of a 

 chance observation. While engaged about a turnino--lathe he 

 took notice that a certain slip of metal, when set in motion' vi- 

 brated m a plane, of its own, independently of the movement of 

 the part of the lathe on which it was carried round. Hence, he 

 thought he could by a certain contrivance exhibit to the eve the 

 revolution of the earth on its axis. He obtains permission to 

 suspend from the dome of the Pantheon at Paris, a pendulum of 

 some 280 feet in length, and demonstrates the accuracy of the 

 idea which he had conceived. However difficult of brief expla- 

 nation the phenomenon may be, it is nevertheless a fact- and it 

 is with a degree of awe that one witnesses it— that the pavement 

 of the Church seems very sensibly to rotate, the pendulum at 

 every oscillation returning to a different point on the o-raduated 

 circle placed below the dome. '^ 



The inventor of spectacles was a great benefactor— but havino- 

 found no chronicler, his name is lost. He was, probably some 

 one who himself suffered from defective vision— the necessity of 

 an individual often leading to contrivances which benefit a class. 

 Friar Bacon has been mentioned as the inventor, but not witli 

 certainty. Speciaeles, however, became generally known in 

 Europe about his time (1214—1292). rhave often thouo-ht 

 that a person afflicted with short sight, would be very apt toTiit 

 upon a remedy. I remombci, as a boy, discovering that many 

 ot the httle blistei-s in common window glass would iiartially cor- 

 rect short-sight; also, that the polished bottom of a common 

 tumbler would occasionally do the same— facts that mi-dit lead 

 any one to the construction of concave lenses. '^ 



(To be continued.) 



