
Up: Glassmaking

Reminiscences 51 of 123
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the atmosphere beyond the power of man to direct, but exercises a power to
affect the heat of the furnace acting for good or for evil,) much
responsibility rests upon the furnace-tenders; constant care on their part
is required. A slight neglect affects the quality of the glass. A check
upon the furnace in founding-time will spoil every pot of metal for the
best work. Over-heat, too, will destroy the pots, and the entire weekly
melt will be launched into the cave, at a loss of several thousand dollars.
Even with the utmost care, a rush of air will not uncommonly pass through
the furnace and destroy one or more pots in a minute's space. And when
the furnace has yielded a full melt, and is ready for work, many evils
are at hand, and among the ever-jarring materials of a glass-house, some
one becomes adverse to a full week's work; vigilance is not always the
price of success.
Again: no branch of mechanical labor possesses
more of attraction for the eye of the stranger or the curious, than is
to be witnessed in a glass-house in full play. The crowded and bee-like
movements of the workmen, with irons and hot metal, yet each, like the
spheres of his own orbit, presents a scene apparently of inextricable
confusion.
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