Smyrna times., 1871-05-24
renlarkl
Glass-Making.

Whatever may have been the origin of glass
manufacture, it is certain that in the best days
of the Roman Empire glass had not only be-
come an important article OF manufacture and
of commerce, but also nearly all the rarer pro-
cesses of modern art had been discovered and
employed. The subjugatiOn of Egypt by
Rome, 26 B. G., was followed first by large
impOrtatioDs of manufactured glass, and then
by the importation of the process Of manufac-
turing Itself To the rude processes Of the
East, the Romans added much if we may
judge anything by comparing the specimens of
their handiwork which have survived the lapse
of centuries with those which have been dis
covered among the sands of Egypt and in the
ruins of Ninevah. They were the first proba-
bly,, to employ glass for windows. Some rem
nants of glass panes ale to be found to-day, in
their frames, in the buried houses of Hercu-
laneum and Pompeii. They substituted glass
as a material for bottles in place of the leath-
er which is still in vogue among the poorer
classes in the Orient. Epicureans in wine
then, as now, determined the age of their ar
ticle by the seal upon the cork, and the label
impressed upon the glass. Glass goblets we're
less popular Gold and silver reluctantly
yielded the palm to their new tangled rival,
which sought popularity by appealing, not to
the poverty of the poor, but to the desire of
novelty among the rich Even artificial stones
and pearls of glass were not unknown. Wheth-
er mirrors of glass were known to the Romans,
or whether they depended exclusively, as they
certainly did chiefly, upon the resource of the
Jews-pOlished metalS-is matter of grave
dispute among the Iearned-a dispute into
which we shall not venture to enter. 1t is
safe, however, to say that the only use of glass
which modern art can claim with assurance,
as exclusively its own, is the employment of
it in those optical instruments which are at
once the children and the parents of SO much
of modern science Even the Crystal Palace
is borrowed from the past, whence we plagiar-
lied for our civilization as we'll as for our tera-
ture. During his 9lileship" quote
from Pliny, book xxxvi., chapter "a" and
only for the temporary purpose of few days.
Scaurus executed the greatest work that has
ever been made by the hands of men, even
when intended to be OF everlasting Duration
his theatre, | mean. This building consisted
of three stories, supported upon three hun
dred and sixty columns; and this, too, in q
city which had not allowed without some cen
sure one of it's greatest citizens to erect six pill
lars of Hymettian marble The ground story
was of marble, the second of glass-a specie.
of luxury which ever since that time has beer
quite unhcard of-and the highest of gildeC
wood. The lOwermOst columns, as previously
stated, were eight-and thirty feet in height
and, placed between these columns, as already
mentioned, were brazen statues three Thousand
in number. The area of this theatre afforded
accommodation for eighty thousand spectators
and yet the theatre of POmpeius, after the city
had so greatly increased, and the inhabitaut
had become so vastly more numerous, wa
considered abundantly large with its sitting
for forty thousand only"