The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-03-11 00:00:00

BIRKENHEAD PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

The Birkenhead Chemical and Philosophical Society,
which began, at the commencement of last year, with
some eight er ten members, upon the principle of meeting
in turns at each others houses, now numbers from 70 to
80 members, and possesses a considerable library of choice
scientific works, and the committee have engaged a spa-
cious meeting-room in Hamilton-street, which was opened
last week by a general meeting of the society, to which
ladies were admitted. The room was crowded to excess,
and, after some slight preliminary business, the Rev. S.
H. Booth read a carefully written and highly interesting
paper upon the Anglo Saxon era.
He began by defining the limits of the subject, stating
that it embraced the higher developements of the Anglo
Saxon constitution. laws and customs. He stated that
the Anglo Saxon era extended from about 450 A.D. to
1066 A.D., when William of Normandy slew Harold, the
last of the Saxon kings. The Anglo Saxon kingdom
stretched from the Clyde to the north-east part of Corn-
wall, and from Yarmouth Roads to Hereford. He then
glanced at the several classes of authorities. They were
the professed historians—the illuminated manuscripts—
the works of tapestry—and the national ballads of the
times. He particularly described the tapestry of Bayeux,
and remarked of ballads, " little as we value them as works
of literary merit, they are a faithful and unerring guide to
the manners te.,d characteristics, and even to the historic
facts of their age."
After touching on the historical progress of the Anglo
Saxon people, and accounting for the subjugation or ex-
pulsion of the Britons, he went on to speak of their insti-
tutions, and in doing so, first of all called attention to the
indelible marks which the old uaaan state of the Anglo
Saxon has left on our language and proper names, instan-
cing the days of the week, the church festival of Easter,
and the word God (good.) It may be remembered by us
with mingled pleasure and surprise, that we rage only
odopted a heathen term to expre” calr conception of the
Supreme.
He passed then to the highest political offices—the
TM or king ; traced its development from the leader-
ship in war to the constitutional monarchy, under the
controul of the Witenagemot. Of the Witenagemot, or
great coencil, it was shown that it consisted of landed
proprietors. Females sat in it if landed proprietors. It
ruled the nation, elected the king, decreed laws, mads
, MOM

The people were divided info three great classes—the
free—the treed—and the slaves.

Their domestic institutions next passed under review.
They were generous and confiding towards their women :
warriors abroad—chivalric at home. Woman was ho-
noured, not with the abject slavery of the knights. errant,
hut in her appropriate sphere of domestic solicitude and
self-renouncing love. Extending in long gradation from
ihe Queen to the meanest serf, each one found herself
equal to her husband—not merely by courtesy from him,
but in the eye of the law, by common consent of all. She
was honoured nationally in the Great Council. The en-
lightened reverence for their mothers, sisters, wives, and
daughters, adds a grace and stability to their laws and
institutions.

Their laws recognised a graduated scale of charge. A
tran purchased immunity from punishment with gold.
He slightly touched on their monetary system—their

dress—habits at table—and then inquired concerning
their literature. They most likely had letters in their
pagan contrition, because, unlike nations which learn
from the Latin, they have words of their own to describe
their literary machinery. Their poetry is of the most
unsound and rudest kind. It consists for the most part
of forced inversions, feeble expletives, and violent transi-
tions. But the ballads, few of which remain, are much
more natural and beautiful than the formal poetry of tne
court bards. The Anglo-Saxon is the foundation of our
own language, and may be found in great plenty in the
works of the ablest au hors. Macaulay critically remarks
on John Bunyan, that you may read whole pages consist-
ing of words of not more than one syllable, yet ample for
all purposes of poetry and thought. Not to despise the
additions of later times, it was a noble language in the
hands of Aldhelm and Alfred the Great, but a still nobler
language in the forum from such men as Pitt, Fox, and
Sheridan—in the pulpit from Barrow, Howe, and Robert
Hall—in the press fro:n Butler, Foster, and Macaulay—
and in the immortal verse of Shakspeare, Milton, and
Burns.
Alter Mr. Booth's paper, the company adjourned to
the refreshment-room, where they were well supplied

with tea, coffee, and confectionary, and the remainder of
the ecenine was occupied with a paper from Mr. Manson
on Fossil Geology.

SECOND PAPER ON THE MANUFACTURE OF GLASS

Having in my first paper given a sketch of the rise of
glass making, I will now turn from ancient to modern
practice, and before describing the manipulations of the
blowing, will say a few words on the glass itself.
The glass, or, as it is technically called when melted,
" the metal," is virtually the same for all kinds of blown
window glass. It is a mixture of silica, lime, and soda,
sli4htly varied in proportion according to the individual
views of the manufacturer. The crucibles, or " pots,"
in which t e materials are melted contain from 25 to 30
cwt. of " metal." In the St. Helens Company's Works
there are 42 pots of that size in constant use for making
window glass only, and eight pots a trifle smaller, some-
times used for window glass also, but generally confined
to shade " metal" and for coloured glass, three and some-
times more being always used for the latter purpose.
There are, therefore, 50 pots filled each "found," their
being three and four ",founds," or meltings, each week,
and sometimes, ',hough rarely, five. The silica of the
glass is supplied as sand, the lime as limestone, and the
soda as sulphate of soda, or " saitcake." Charcoal is
added to decompose the sulphate of soda by abstracting
oxygen from it, and when not present in excess is entirely
burnt by the decomposition and passes of as carbonic,
oxide and acid gasses. White arsenic (arsenious acid)
and the black peroxide of manganese are used to correct
as much as possible the colour of the glass arising, not
only from impurities, but also from the nature of the ma-
terials themselves. Excess of charcoal gives either a yel-
low, more or less intent, or a blue, both are ascribed to
various compounds of sulphur derived from the sulphates.
The blue being supposed to be owing to some compound
analogous to ultra-marine, a substance composed of sul-
phur, silica, lime, and soda. Upon these sulphur colours
arsenic exercises a peculiar bleaching power, the oxide of
manganese has a more beneficial effect upon the green
tinge arising from the oxide of iron, present as a trouble-
some impurity. The alteration of the colour of glass by
exposure to the influence of light and air is a very in-
teresting and important subject. Glass containing man-
ganese often becomes very dark, and this is particularly
noticeable in some kinds of cast plate glass and foreign
sheet glass. I believe the liability of n.anganese glass to
alter increases with its softness and with the absence of
lime from the composition; and that hard glass, contain-
ing a great quantity of lime, such as is blown in England,
is not affected by many years exposure. The tint I have
found least liable to alteration is a greenish yellow, of
course I speak of the tint only, it cannot be too light in
absolute colour. All whiter and yellower tints I have
found more liable to alteration for the worse; a light blue
is the only tint which changes for the better ; some va-
rieties of it have become colourless by a few years expo-
sure. Unfortunately blue is the most objectionable for
first use, giving a cold appearance to most objects seen
through it. White clouds are particularly delicate tests of
the tint of window glass. This subject deserves more at-
tention- than it generally receives ; many judge of the
colour of glass as if it were unalterable, and forget, or are
ignorant of the fact, that many glasses, the hest colour to-
day, will be the worst after a twelvemonth's exposure.

—I„
will now suppose the materials to be melted. and toe
"metal" cooled until about the consitAtence of thick honey.
There are only two kinds'of blown window glass made at
present, crown glass and sheet glass, with its varieties.
In "crown," the " metal" is wrought into a a flat cir-
cular table, with a " bull's eye" in the centre • and in
koinf
mo of
"metal,"
butar e
"sheet," into a hollow cylinder which is cut in the' direc-
tion of its axis, and then unrolled into a flat rectangular
'iresqhueeetn't'iyotn.
luatleifofrrommt thickness. nacms se.
furnaceo tl'

as crown 'glass has been made for a longer period, I will
first describe its manuLcture, and then proceed to sheet

upon the end of the iron
" to form a table of the size

*duty to take up, or "gather,

fiCient "metal

The average diameter being 52

with a 1-inch bore from -vend to end. The mouth-piece is
turned of a convenient shape, and a handle is. formed ad-
joining it by wrappinz cord upon the pipe, until the
diameter is increased to about 2 inches, it is then covered
with a thin layer of cement. The " metal" is " ga-
_ ~freim;h7_ " the nose." the

March 11, rs 518 .

description. The point ultimately forms the " bull's Wlpr
or " bullion." The shape being perfected, and Ls!
" rectal" of a proper consistence, the " piece"' is restores
to its first position, and a boy blows forcibly down the
pipe, and the " piece" assumes the shape of a small bs'
loon and is carried by the boy from the "'potherb" 0
the " blower." The small air bubble in the centre
is left for the purpose of keeping open the bore of the
pipe, or the contraction of the iron would so fasten the
" metal" in the aperture, that no human, being would
hare power to force a passage. From very obvious res'
sons it follows that the larger the opening, or bubble, cos;
taming air the easier is the blowing,. hence the very sins;
bubble for the " marver boy" to commence upon, an
the stiffness of the metal render his blowing the hardest
in the whole process, and he is obliged to hold in bii
cheeks with his hand, or the muscles would become ss
fatigued he could not blow at all; this post is taken is
turn for short periods.

'his completes the first stage in the process, and in 01
next communication I will detail all that remains of tb
process of making crown glass.