220 



ON ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERIES. 



[1853 



On Accidental Di.-coi'eric?. 



Mead at tlie Anm/al Conversazione of the CanaUan Inidtutt; 

 April 2, 1853, 5y Henry Scaddincj, D. D., Cantab., First 

 Classical Master of Upper Canada Colleje, 



(Continued frotn Page 207.^ 



Sir Francis Palegrave in his " Mereliaiit and Fiiar," amus- 

 ingly represent the good Alibot as scouting tlie idea that tlic 

 shape had anything to do witli the mar\ellous effect which a 

 certain lens was discovered to lia\o on the vision of the short- 

 sighted young Emperor. According to the notion of the age, it 

 was simply the innate virlr,i of the transparent gem of which 

 the lens was composed that produced the result. 



The defect of sight arising from the approach of old ago, calls 

 of course, as we all know, for a lens of the reverse shape of that 

 required by the short-sighted. The construction of such a lens 

 may readily have been suggested by noticing the magnifying 

 power of a drop of water, or a globule of clear glass. A lens of 

 this description once made, and usjd in frames for the correction 

 of \ision, soon led to important combinations. 



An ingenious lad — the son of a spoctacle-maker at Middlebnrgh 

 in Holland — takes it into his head to look through two of these 

 convex lenses at once, varying the distance between them by means 

 of his two hands. He observes that the vano on the chuich 

 steep.'e is brought wonderfully close to his eye — ^but that the 

 image seen is reversed. The casual cii'cumstance gives birth to a 

 noble progeny of inventions. Here is the rudimental germ of 

 the Telescope, the Microscope, the Cameras for \arious purposes. 



When Lawrence Koster, at Haarlem in 1430, let fall on a 

 piece of paper the fragment of beech bark on which he had 

 playfully cut in relief the initials of his name, httle dreamed he 

 as the stain produced by the moist sap first attracted his atten- 

 tion, what a revelation had been made to him, and through him 

 to the world. Metal types and tlie art of priuting thus had their 

 beginning. 



Bradley, the celebrated astronomei-, (1748), is amusing himself 

 with sailing on the Thames in a pleasure boat: the wind is 

 blowing strongly; frequent tacks are made; he notices that at 

 eveiy turn of the boat, the \ane at the mast-head, instead of 

 keeping steadily in the direetiou of the wind, exhibits an un- 

 certain sort of motion. By a train of reasoning he arrives at an 

 important conclusion on the subject of the aberration of light, 

 starting a theory that has relieved astronomere from a perplexity 

 under which they had previously laboured. 



M. Mains, a French Colonel of Engineers, (1810J, casually 

 turning about in his lianil a double rcfi-aeting prism, as the sun 

 is setting, observes one of the images of a window in the Palace 

 of the Luxembourg disappear — and it leads hiiri to the discovery 

 which has rendei-cd his name distinguished, of the polarization of 

 light by reflection. 



We might narrate how friction on amber originated the science 

 and name of electricity — how experiments with jet, with sealing 

 w-ax and India Itubbor, might lead to the same result — how 

 Louis Galvani, (1737) at Bologna, by taking notice of the spas- 

 modic action of the legs of (J(^ad frogs when touched by his 

 electiically-charged scalpel, discovered that phase of electric 

 science that retains his name — "how Masso Finiguerra, (1450) at 

 Florence, while working at his business as an anncalcr of gold 

 and silver, discovcicd the art of engraving on copper-plates, so as 

 to obtain impre-sions on paper therefrom — how Louis Von 



Liegen, (164.3,) — or, as some say, Pi'ince Rupert— ;u vented the 

 process of mezzotint, b}' observing the corrosion of rust on a 

 gun-barrel — how Alonzo Barba at JPotosi, (1640,) happening to 

 mix some powdered silver ore \vith quicksilver — with the view 

 of fixing, if possible, the latter substance — found all the pure sil- 

 ver of the ore absorbed by the quicksilver, and so arri\'ed at the 

 secret of foiming amalgams — -how the casual obser\ation of 

 Francis Joseph Gall, (I 757,) while yet a boy at school — to the 

 etTect that those of his companions who had prominent eyes had 

 facility in remembering words^ed at last to his curious theory 

 of phrenolog}' — -how M. Argaud, by perceiving a draught created 

 by the passing of the nei-k of a broken bottle over a tlamc, wi»s 

 led to invent the well-known Argand Lamp — how M. da Cour- 

 tois, (1813,) by accident detected iodine m sea- weed, from which 

 material, since his time, it has beau extensively manufactured. 



Those, and other equally interesting examples of happ}' dis- 

 coveries by accident, I might narrate at length ; but, I luisten to 

 speak of the steam-engine, whose histor}' presents us with several 

 anecdotes in point. With these I shidl conclude. 



And first, the Marquis of Worcester, [1650,] while a political 

 prisoner in the Tower, conceives from the dancing motion of the 

 cover of the vessel in which ho is cooking his dinner, the idea of 

 a piston driven by steam — an idea that results at last in the per- 

 fect engine of James Watt. 



Then, Capt. Savery, (1680,) flings into the fire a wine-flask 

 from which he has just removed the contents ; he pei'ceives that 

 steam is generated by a few drops which remain in it. Some- 

 thing prompts him at this moment to snatch it from the fire, and 

 to jilunge its neck into a bowl of water; the water rushes up 

 into the bodj' of the flask, a partial vacuum having been created 

 therein. This leads him to the construction of the engine known 

 by his name, useful for raising water from small depths. 



Again, up to the time of Newcoraen, (1705,) the condensation 

 of the steam within the cylinder was eflectdl by the external ap- 

 plication of cold water. He observes on one occasion that the 

 piston continued its movements after the external application had 

 ceased ; and the cause of this he finds to be a jet of water enter- 

 ing the cylinder through a small aperture wdiich had escaped his 

 notice. A well-known simplification of the engine is the 

 consequence. 



Lastly, the boy Humphrey Potter, set to open and shut the 

 steam-valves, contrixes by means of strings to make the working 

 beani supply his place; thus originating arrangements b}' which 

 the beam is made to execute several secondary ofBces. 



The disco'.'cries to which I have alluded, I have spoken of .is 

 accidental. This is a ]ihr,iseology which we rather unrelieclingly 

 employ. Doubtless, all the capabilities of things — the agreeable 

 as well as the useful— -are intentional. They have existed from 

 the beginning, and ha\o been designed for the good of )non; 

 and when an individual is so fortunate as to detect any one of 

 them, he is simply fulfilling the Divine will. 



On looking back over histor}-, I think ton wo can discern, in 

 the ease of several important discoveries at least, that the moment 

 of their occurrence has not been utterly aceiilental. When the 

 mariner's compass was invented, it was soon to be required. 

 Columbus, Vasco de Gama and Cabot lived in the next age. 

 When Lawrence Koster saw his initials impressed on jiajier from 

 the piece of beech-bark, the intellect of the fifteenth century was 

 heaving, formcuting — struggling for some means of embodying 

 and circulating its asjiirations, more rapid, more univei'sal than 

 the reed of the solit;ny scribe. 



