The gaffer could not tell. But the Doctor said
it was probably the French cueillette (from the same root as our
word cull), meaning a gathering, a picked-up lot, a collection
(also from the same root), and said he thought it applied very aptly to
such a curious heap.
"A vast quantity accumulates about a glass-factory,"
said the gaffer. "Sometimes you would think more than half goes into the
waste-pans, when we are blowing. But nothing is wasted. As the old,
burnt-out pots are good to mix with fresh clay in making new ones, so cullet,
melted over again with the other materials, improves the quality of the
product. Now for the other materials."
"What! do you use sugar?" said Lawrence, as they
came to a number of upright open barrels.
"Taste it," said the gaffer.
"Sand!" exclaimed Lawrence, the moment his fingers
touched it. "But don't it look like pulverized white sugar? Where do you
get it?"
"From Berkshire County. It is washed there, and
put up wet, to prevent it from sifting out of the barrels. Here we are
drying it in this sand-oven,"-- and the gaffer showed a heap spread out on
a large, pan-shaped table, heated from beneath. "Sand," he added, "is the
principal article in the manufacture of flint glass."
"Why do you call it flint?"
"In the English factories," said the gaffer, "it
used to be made of flint stone, broken up and ground. But in this country
glass-makers found sand much easier
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