Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1911 — INVENTION OF CHANGE [ARTICLE]

INVENTION OF CHANGE

BAYONET DEVISED BY TROOPS WHO HAD NO AMMUNITION. How Argand Invented His Lamp and Galileo the Telescope With Accidental Assistance—Discovery of Lithography. The bayonet Is said to have derived Its name from the fact that it was first made at Bayonne, and its origin illustrates the proverb, "Necessity Is the mother of invention.” A Basque regiment was hard pressed by the enemy on a mountain ridge near Bayonne. One of the soldiers suggested that as their ammunition was exhausted, they should fix their long knives into the barrels of their muskets. The suggestion Was acted upon. The first bayonet charge was made, and the victory of the Basques led to the manufacture of the weapon at Bayonne, and its adoption into the armies of Europe. Not infrequently an Invention has been suggested by some trivial event which would have passed unnoticed had not a man with eyes and brains seen it. Argand, a poor Swiss, Invented a lamp with a wick fitted into a hollow cylinder up which a current of air was allowed to pass, thus giving a supply of oxygen to .the interior as well as to the exterior of the circular frame. At first Argand used the lamp without any chimney. One day he was busy in his workroom and sitting before the burning lamp. His little brother was amusing himself by placing a bottomless oil flask over different articles. Presently he placed it upon the flame of the lamp, which Instantly shot up the long, circular neck of the flask with increased brilliancy. It did more, for it flashed into Argand’s mind the idea of the lamp chimney, by which his invention was perfected. One day the children of a Dutch spectacle maker were playing with some of their father's glasses before the door of his shop.. Setting two of the largest glasses together they peeped through them and were surprised to see the weather cock of the opposite church brought close to their eyes. They called their father to see the strange sight. He looked through the glasses and what he saw suggested to him the possibility of constructing a curious toy. Galileo, hearing of the toy which made distant things appear close at hand, saw at once what a valuable help It would be in studying the heavens. He set to work, and soon made the telescope.

An accident helped Senefelder to invent lithography. He was a sort of Jkck-of-all trades, a writer of verses and comedies, an actor, a fiddler, a painter, an engraver and a printer. He worked at etching on copper, but the coppersmith refused to let him have any more plateß unless he paid cash for them. He then tried to utilize the old plates by rubbing oft the etchings with a soft limestone. At last the copper became useless through many rubbings, and he tried etching on the stone, a plan that did not work very well. One day, while he was polishing off a stone which he Intended to etch, his mother asked him to write out a list of the linen which the laundress was waiting to carry off. Not finding a slip of paper or a drop of ink, Senefelder wrote the list on the stone with printing ink prepared from wax, soap and lampblack, intending to copy it at his leisure. A few days later, when he was about to wipe the writing from the stone, he thought he would learn what would be the effect of writing with the prepared ink on the stone, if it should be bitten in . with aquafortis. He bit away to about the hundredth part of an inch, charged the lines with the ink, took several impressions of the writing and discpvered that he had Invented the art of lithography. —Harper's Weekly.