Futility Closet

In 1827, Keswick stonemason Joseph Richardson noticed that certain rocks in Britain's Lake District gave a pure, ringing tone. After 13 years of effort he produced a lithophone, a musical instrument that produces notes by striking rocks, and he took it on a three-year concert tour through Northern England.

It's not clear what it sounded like: Richardson and his three sons played Mozart, Beethoven, and Handel, reportedly achieving different effects by striking the stones in different ways. An 1846 newspaper account says the tone varied from the warble of a lark to the bass of a funeral bell.

By 1848 they were performing for the queen and traveling to France, Germany, and Italy. On the eve of a trip to America, though, the youngest son died of pneumonia, and the band retired. Richardson's great-grandson donated the instrument to a museum in 1917.

In order to treat patients who had lost the ability to focus their attention, German physician Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) proposed a "Katzenklavier" whose keys would drive nails into the tails of cats, who would yowl on key. This, he reasoned, would capture anyone's attention.

The American postmodernist composer Charlie Dees actually published two concerti for Katzenklavier in 2004. Thankfully, they remain unperformed.

If you use Microsoft Windows, you've seen the Webdings and Wingdings fonts. They're "dingbat" fonts — in place of letters they offer small clip-art images and symbols.

Well, here's "NYC" in Webdings:

And here's "NYC" in Wingdings:

Make of this what you will.

The Milanese airship Italia reached the North Pole in 1928, but on the way back to base it encountered worsening weather and crashed to the ice. Ten men were thrown from the cabin; the chief engineer managed to throw them some supplies before he and five others were drawn helplessly away with the drifting envelope.

Nine of the castaways eventually reached civilization, but no trace of the airship or its captives has ever been found.

See also Hope Springs Eternal.

New York's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is the largest suspension bridge in the United States.

Its towers are 1-5/8 inches farther apart at their tops than at their bases — to accommodate the curvature of the earth.

The longest item of news ever telegraphed to a newspaper, was the entire New Testament as revised, and all variations of the English and American committees, from New York to Chicago, and the whole published as an item of news in the Sunday morning Chicago Tribune for May 22, 1882. That day's Tribune comprised 20 pages, 16 of which were required for the New Testament.

– Miscellaneous Notes and Queries, May 1889

In 1891, Hermann Reiche patented a platform "to enable an elephant to climb up a tree."

"Doubt," wrote Galileo, "is the father of invention."

The Confederate navy had a working submarine during the Civil War. Powered by a hand crank, the 40-foot H.L. Hunley managed to sink an 1,800-ton sloop-of-war in Charleston harbor in 1864, a historic first, but then herself sank.

Little is known about the sub's crew, but one story held that the commander, Lt. George E. Dixon, had survived the Battle of Shiloh because a Union bullet struck a coin in his pocket. His sweetheart, it was said, had given him the coin "for protection." This was considered a family legend until 2002, when a forensic anthropologist investigating the Hunley's remains discovered a healed injury to Dixon's hip bone.

Near Dixon's station another researcher found a misshapen $20 gold piece, minted in 1860, with this inscription:

Shiloh
April 6 1862
My life Preserver
G. E. D.

In the early 19th century, French occultist Jacques Toussaint Benoit became convinced that when two snails touch they form a "sympathetic bond" so that, ever afterward, when one is touched the other will respond.

He got financing to build a "snail telegraph," a dish in which 24 lettered snails were glued in place. Messages could be sent by touching snails in sequence; their partners, glued to an identical dish elsewhere, would then wriggle, conveying the message.

After a demonstration in October 1851, La Presse hailed the invention as a revolution. Benoit's backers, however, demanded a stricter test — and found that the inventor had disappeared.

Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Benford's Corollary: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

Raymond's Second Law: Any sufficiently advanced system of magic would be indistinguishable from a technology.

Sterling's Corollary: Any sufficiently advanced garbage is indistinguishable from magic.

Langford's application to science fiction: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device.