Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1883 — Curious Experiment. [ARTICLE]

Curious Experiment.

Some few months ago I filled a white glass lamp, of a globular shape, with clear spring water, placed it in the window at about 10 o’clock of a cleat morning, in a position to recieve the rays of the sun. In one minute, a piece of black silk .which I had placed within half an inch of the glass, and in the focus, became ignited. The rays of the sun can thus be collected through a body of clear water, and a common white glass lamp may be made to serve the purpose of a burning lens. I placed in the same lamp, suspended by a thread in the water, several colored glass beads. A little distance from the lamp I fixed a sheet of white paper. The rays of the sun passing through the water and the beads, threw upon the surface of the paper a variety of the most beautiful colors that imagination can picture.— Exchange. If Lord Bacon, as some literary cranks assert, wrote the plays attributed to Shakspeare merely as a recreation from laborious toil, it is a great pity he didn’t recreate more and toil less. The first patent on record was taken out by Samuel Hopkins, in 1790, sor s making pearl ashes. Then, in 1791, Pollard got a patent for spinning cotton by power.