Up: Glassmaking
Reminiscences
7 of 123
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arrive when, from increased purity of materials and progressive chemical
development, the present position of the art will fall comparatively into
the shade. It is no undue stretch of the imagination to conceive that
lenses shall be perfected whose purity will enable the astronomer to penetrate
the remotest region of space; new worlds may perhaps be revealed, realizing
all that the "moon hoax" promised—
"The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky
And spangled heavens"--
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be read as a book, and man perhaps recognize man in other worlds than his
own. It may be that in its triumphs it is destined to concentrate the rays
of the sunlight, and make the eye to pierce into the secrets and deep places
of the sea,
| "Full many a fathom deep." |
Man may be enabled to read the wonders and the hidden works of the
Almighty; it may be, that the power of the traditional lens of
Archimedes upon the fleet of
Marcellus shall be realized, in the
absorbing and igniting, and perhaps useful power of some feature in its
progress; and in its sphere, the art become fruitful in practical results,
rivalling the highest attainment in the department of scientific progress.
It is no
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