In the last century, at a meeting of a society of mathematicians at
Liverpool, one of the members proposed to lay a wager, that he would
read a paragraph of a newspaper, at ten yards' distance, with the light
of a farthing candle. The wager was laid, and the proposer, having
covered the inside of a wooden dish with pieces of looking-glass,
fastened in with glaziers' putty, placed his reflector behind the
candle, and won his wager. One of the company marked this experiment
with a philosophic eye. This was Captain Hutchinson, the dockmaster,
with whom originated the reflecting lighthouses, erected at Liverpool in
1763.
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