INVENTION IMPAIRED BY SALARY.
THE author of the Memoir of Sir H. DAVY'S Life, which has appeared in this paper, has very truly observed, that the smallest means may be productive of the most important ends. The proposition may be enlarged to the extent that the abstraction of means altogether is sometimes productive of the greatest results. If report speaks the truth, this has been whimsically illustrated by the discovery of a new species of glass for astronomical purposes. As long as the Government furnished a large annual sum to the Board of Longitude, for the prosecution of this inquiry, nothing was effected: glass-houses were built up and pulled down, furnaces and crucibles were constructed without end ; but not a single new fact was added to the previous store. No sooner, however, was this grant by Government discontinued—no sooner had the glitter ceased to dazzle the eyes—than the eyes of the philosopher were opened ; the same chemists then set to work with their own means, on a small scale, and behold the problem was solved l—a new composition is discovered, which puts the astronomer in possession of a glass, free from those optical objections which had so long retarded the progress of successful observation. Common glass is a compound of silica, alkali, and oxide of lead ; the new glass is composed of silica, bora.cic acid, and oxide of lead.
Previous page
