A Sun Surface

Sir Henry Bessemer, tne well-known inventor of the steel process which beare lus name, tella be tried to construct :i "un furnaee" and failed. His invention, says the Pittsburgh Dispatch, was [atended to revolutionize not only the science of metalluryy, but the whole world. It was to íittain a tomperature of nearlv sixty thousand degrees, and therefore fuse anj'thing and everything. and Sir Henry puts the blamc of its faihire to fulfül these expectations on the stiipidity of a country lensmaker. The "sun furnace" consisted of a wooden building thirtyfeet high and abouttwelve feet square. A few feet from the ff round was flxed a large incunable mirror for catching the rays of the sun; from this mirror the rays were to be reflected onto a number of powerful super imposed lenses above, which, by a simple arrangement, were to throw the enormously concentrated rays upon whatever object might be in the crucible below. Such was the mighty plan, but the manufacturer of the upper glossea brought it miserably to nauprlit, for instead of turning them out uniform he made them all different and thus spoiled the focus. Sir Henry was so disgusted and disheartened that he rcfuscd to ffo over the fjround again and so the pretentieus scheme lapsed. but the peculiar furnace remains to this ilav a reinarkablc monument of wliat might have been.