or masses, agreeably to a pre-figured design. When submitted to
heat sufficient to fuse the whole, the four sides, at the same time,
being pressed together, so as to exclude the air from the interstices of
the threads—the result will be a homogeneous thick slab, which,
if cut into veneers, at right angles or laterally, will yield a number
of slabs or layers of the same uniform design; these, it is supposed,
were employed by the ancients in jewellery ornaments. Many specimens
may be seen in the British Museum. (See coloured
Plate III, figs. 5, 6, 7, and 8.) On this principle
were executed the pictures of Mosaic Glass
noticed by Winckelmann. Ancient pavements were inlaid with small pieces
of coloured Glass, some quite opaque, of various tints, put together
with cement, in a like manner to the fictile, tesselated pavements.
Similarly small pieces of opaque enamel and Glass were also used in
great abundance to ornament the fountains of Pompeii; and specimens of
this class are continually discovered. This tesselated Glass-work is,
however, entirely dissimilar to the above Mosaic, the various pieces not
being, as in that, homogeneously united together by fusion. Minutoli,
in his "Farbigen Gläer beiden Alten," gives a drawing of three
nymphs and a male figure, the latter carrying a water-urn, and the three
former wearing coronets of reeds, all in tesselated light green Glass,
whilst the entire of the dark green background and yellow figures of
the picture, are executed in stone mosaics.