The rapids above the falls disappeared, leaving
scarcely enough on the American side to turn a grindstone. Ladies
and gentlemen rode in carriages one-third of the way across the river
towards the Canada shore, over solid rock as smooth as a kitchen
floor. The _Iris_ says: 'Table Rock, with some two hundred yards more,
was left dry; islands and places where the foot of man never dared to
tread have been visited, flags placed upon come, and mementoes brought
away. This unexpected event is attempted to be accounted for by an
accumulation of ice at the lower extremity of Fort Erie, which formed
a sort of dam between Fort Erie and Buffalo.'"
WONDERS OF MINUTE WORKMANSHIP.
In the twentieth year of Queen Elizabeth, a blacksmith named Mark
Scaliot, made a lock consisting of eleven pieces of iron, steel and
brass, all which, together with a key to it, weighed but one grain of
gold. He also made a chain of gold, consisting of forty-three links,
and, having fastened this to the before-mentioned lock and key, he put
the chain about the neck of a flea, which drew them all with ease. All
these together, lock and key, chain and flea, weighed only one grain
and a half.
Oswaldus Norhingerus, who was more famous even than Scaliot for his
minute contrivances, is said to have made 1,600 dishes of turned
ivory, all perfect and complete in every part, yet so small, thin and
slender, that all of them were included at once in a cup turned out
of a pepper-corn of the common size.
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