The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [822]
A CHAPTER ON SCIENCE AND ART (PART II)
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CONJECTURAL DISCOVERY OF A NEW PLANET. — By means of glasses just invented by count Decuppis, an observer is enabled to look at the sun without any inconvenience from its rays — the disc appears of a perfect whiteness, and all the firmamental objects have an equal distinctness. By the aid of his new glass, the count lately observed on the face of the sun a small black spot, entirely free from penumbra, and of perfectly spherical form, which had advanced upon the disc, describing an arc of about seven minutes. Repeated observations convinced him that it had, in the meantime, advanced towards the sun's limb, as much as two minutes and thirty seconds. Presently it disappeared. All astronomers will agree in supposing the object a small planet, hitherto undiscovered, and passing over the sun's disc at the period of survey. Its perfectly round figure, its blackness, the smallness of its diameter, its motion, and the absence of penumbra fully warrant the conjecture. The event is one of the highest importance in an astronomical, or indeed in any point of view. A twelfth world has been added to our system. It will no doubt receive the name of its discoverer, Decuppis.
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THE ROYAL GEORGE. — The submarine operations in respect to this ship have been unsatisfactory but full of interest. Col. Pasley has concluded his labors for the present, but will resume them about the first of June. The wreck is said to be enveloped in total darkness, and completely imbedded in mud. Some means may perhaps be suggested by which light can be diffused below. Lanterns have been tried to no purpose. The divers assert that even on the brightest days of summer, when the sea is perfectly calm, they can scarcely see an inch before them. During the experiments, 12,940 pounds of powder have been consumed. More than one hundred tons of the wreck have been recovered, and placed in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, with five brass and six iron guns; and all expenses have been more than paid by the value of the articles recovered. The advantage to the anchorage is beyond calculation.
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THE PYRAMIDS. — A discovery has been made, in the neighborhood of these monuments, of a great number of apartments and cavities communicating with each other; also, at a distance of many miles of desert, of the foundation of decayed pyramids, whose very granite blocks are dissolved to dust. Who shall tell the vast antiquity of these remains? The pyramids which stand firm to-day about Cairo are universally admitted to be four or five thousand years old. There must be something wrong yet about our chronology.
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SINGULAR SCIENTIFIC ERROR. — In the infancy of rail-road speculation, the engineers resorted to a thousand laborious contrivances with a view of overcoming an obstacle which had no real existence. It was assumed that the adhesion of the smooth wheels of the carriage upon the equally smooth iron-rail must necessarily be so slight, that if it should be attempted to drag any considerable weight, the wheels would only be whirled round, while the carriages would not advance. A patent for an invention to remedy this fancied inconvenience was actually taken out by Mr. Blenkinsop, in 1811.
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IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DAGUERREOTYPE. — Numerous improvements have been lately made in the beautiful art of photogeny. The baron Seguier has exhibited an instrument constructed by himself, with many ingenious modifications, having for their objects a diminution in size and weight, and a simplification, in other respects, of the entire apparatus. Several of the conditions which have been announced as required for the success of the process, may be dispensed with. It is probable, now, that the operations of the art may be rendered practicable in the open country — even those nice and delicate ones which, at present, seem to demand protection against too strong a light. An objective glass has been constructed by M. Cauche, with the view of redressing the image obtained in the Daguerreotype; this image is now presented reversed,