Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1872 — Minute Mechanism. [ARTICLE]

Minute Mechanism.

To show the ingenuity and skill of some of the inventive spirits of the past and present.day, says a writerin the Chi-, cago Tribune, w will give a few examples which we have gleaned from various sources. In the Museum at Salem, Mass, (which place will be better remembered when we are told that it was the place in which Hawthorne penned many of his contributions to the literary world), is a cherry-stone which contains one dozen silver spoons. The stone itself is of the ordinary size; but the spoons are so small that their shape or finish can only be distinguished by the microscope. Here is the result of immense labor for no deci dqdly useful purpose; and there are thousands of otherobjects, the value of which, in a utilitarian sense, may be said to be quite as indifferent. Dr. Oliver gives an account of a cherry-stone on which were carved one hundred and twenty-four heads, so distinctly that the naked eye could distinguish those belonging to Popes and Kings by theirmitres and crowns. It was bought in Prussia for $15,000, and thence conveyed to England, where it was considered an object of so much value that its possession was disputed, and it became the object of a suit in chancery. One of the Nuremberg toy-makers inclosed in a cherry-stone, which was exhibited at the French Crystal Palace, a plan of Sebastopol, a railway station, and the “Messiah” "of Klopstbck. In more remote times, an account is given of an ivory chariot, constructed by Mermecides, which was so small that a fly could cover it with his wing; also a ship of the same material, which could be hidden under the wing of a bee! Pliny, too, tells us that Homer’s “Iliad,” with its 15,000 verses, was written in so small a space as to be contained in a nutshell, which was pobably the richest kern al ever found in any species of nut in existence. Elian mentions an artist who wrote a distitch in letters of gold, which he inclosed in the rind of a kernel of corn. But the Harleian MS. mentions a greater curiosity’ than any of the above, it being nothing morenor less than the Bible, writ, ten by one Peter Bales, a chancery clerk, in so small a book that it could be enclosed in the shell of an English walnut. Disraeli gives q,n account.of many other exploits similar to the one of Bales. There is a drawing of the head of Charles 11. in the library of St. John’s College, Oxford, wholly composed of minute writtencharacters, which, at a small distance, resemble the lines of an engraving. The head and the ruff are said to contain the Book of Psalms, in Greek, and the Lord’s Prayer. In the British Museum is a portrait of Queen Anne, not much larger than the hand. On this drawing is a number of lines and scratches, which, it is asserted, comprise the entire contents of a thin folio. The modern art of photography is capable of effecting wonders in this way—a fact which was taken advantage of by the French in sending dispatches, by carrierpigeons, outside the city. We have before us a copy of the Declaration of Independence,containing 17,800 letters, on a space not larger than the head of a pin; which, when viewed through a microscope, may be read distinctly. These instances might be multiplied ad infinitum;! f space permitted; but enough is as good as a least, and I will close by mentioning the following facts as showing the crude value oersizs the industrial value of an article : A pound weight of pig iron costs the operative manufacturer about five cents. This is worked, up into steel, of which is made the little spiral spring that moves the balance wheel of a watch. Each of these springs weighs but the tenth part of a grain, and, when completed, may be sold as high as $3; so that, out of a pound of iron, allowing for the loss of the metal in working, 80,000 of these springs niay be made, and a substance worth but five cents be wrought into SKvalue of $240,000.

The publisher of the Bradley County ■ (Ark. > Aoo/e thus excuses himself for the j delay in issuing hie paper:. “A printer I who is pressman, cpnjpOsitor, maker-up : of forms, ‘ad-setter,’ does all the job-1 work, clipping copy and writing for a j twenty-four column newspaper,, may I have the ‘dead-wood’ on strikes,’ but we’ll be hanged-if he hasn’t got his ‘hands full’ when it comes to doing all his work and having six chills a week.” ; A rouoh North Carolinian, going West i with his dozen children and two dozen dogs, got on board the steamer Highflyer - at a Kentucky landing, and his first question was, “flow much will you charge, cap’n, to take us to St. Louis’” “ Willyou.go on deck or in the cabin?” queried j the captain. The Carolinian hesitated a ’ moment, and then, with A sigh over his own self-sacrifice, replied: “Wai, cap’n, I’ve, lived in a cabin all my. lift, and I s’pose the cabin’ll be good enough for me,” ' ~ v - Mr. Clinger, of Polk, County, Oregon, raised this season a new kind" of grass, the seed of whieh was obtained Ln Pefttr that grew twelve feet high, / -