The Mentor · Glass and Glass-Making · Page 10

and bring back images of the aristocratic homes that survived the Revolution.

Glass in the Making
Before sand is melted for the making of glass it is first cleansed of impurities. If a fine quality of glass is to be obtained, the sand is purified by washing, burning and sifting. In this way it is rid of iron, lime, chalk, magnesia and dirt that would affect its quality. When the sand is cleaned, "the batch" is made by skilfully mixing the ingredients of glass in their proper proportion. The mixture is then poured into melting pots of carefully selected clay, or into gas-heated "tank furnaces."
Molten glass is so sticky that it will adhere in a soft mass to the end of a stick, "and if the stick be a tube, the lump may be distended, by blowing through the tube, into a hollow sphere. The form of this sphere or bulb may be modified by manipulating the pipe, and if a second iron be attached by a seal of glass to the other side of the bulb, it may be drawn out into a tube. If the bulb be opened by removing it from the blowing iron, and then, after attaching it at its opposite side to another iron, be trundled rapidly like a mop, the opening will expand by centrifugal force, into a disk.

GLASS-BLOWING

These are the processes which, infinitely diversified and complicated by the skill of the workmen

MIXING THE BASE OF SAND, SODA AND LIME
Broken bottles are fused with the sand
and alkalis to obtain a clear glass