Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1891 — Some Great Very Small Things. [ARTICLE]

Some Great Very Small Things.

At a shoe shop in London in 1745 was exhibited a common Barcelona nutshell holding a tea table, tea board, a dozen cups and saucers, with sugar dish, bottle, funnel, fifteen drinking glasses, five punch bowls, ten rummels, a pestle and mortar and two sets of ninepins—all of polished ivory exquisitely fashioned, and according to the account of the time, “all to be plainly seen without the aid of optic glasses. ” This wonder was the work of a poor artist who had hit upon this plan to make a living. His little exhibition was soon outdone by Boverick, the watch-maker. For 1 shilling this last-named genius would show visitors the half of a common cherry-stone, from which he would take a quadrille table, twelve chairs with skeleton backs, a looking glass neatly framed, two dozen plates, six saucers, twelve spoons, a dozen knives and forks, two salt cups and a lady and gentleman whom: he seated at the table.

This same Boverick also made an ivory camel that could be passed through the eye of a common needle, six pairs of steel scissors that could all be hid under the wing of a common house-fly, and a gold chain of 200 links to which a miniature padlock and key were attached, all of which were of such minute dimensions as to be easily pulled across a pane of glass by a flea. Later on he produced a small ivory coach which he harnessed to a flea, coach and steed weighing exactly as much as a barley-grain; and a cranenecked carriage, with wheels turning properly on their axles, carrying four passengers, swo footmen, a coachman sitting on the box with a dog between his legs, driving six ivory horses, one of tne leaders bearing a postillion, the whole affair so light that this same pet flea could set it in motion, but was not equal to the task of dragging it across the show-case.