The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1880-11-17
GLASS EYES,
How Eyes Are Made-A Trade Which
ia a Real Fine Art-Counterfeit Optics
for Dogs and Morses-SomethinE About
Dolls' Eyes.

How Eyes Are Made-A Trade Which
ia a Real Fine Art-C0unterfeit Optics
for Dogs and Norses-SomethinE About
Dolls Eyes.
"The French no longer %monopolize
the manufacture of glass eyes, observed
a Broadway optician to- q New York
Neus reporter. I'VE are, or rather one
New Yorker is, making rs perfect ones
now rs were ever turned out of any of
the French factories, and it will not be
many months before our market will be
fully supplied with eyes Of home manu-
facture. I ship q great many to South
and Central America, and where l had
to keep the supply up with imported
than half of American make away.
Nv shipments are almost all to private
customers. There are no dealers in glass
eyes down there, though the orders Tor
them generally come from physicians
who make a neat percentage out Of their
customers. Is the business IN extern
sive onep It is much more so than you
would suppose. I don't know whether
gouging is q favorite amusement in
Bueous Ayres now, but | sent several
gross Of eyes to that place alone last
year, and nearly as many to Rio
Janeiro."
N The secrets of the manufacture of glass
eyes are very jealousy guarded ones
NlYery manufacturer claiming to possess
Sfhe sole recipe for the composition of
those limpid enamels which so closely
approach nature in the colors they i'm
part to the artificial optic. Most of
them do have special formulas for the
manufacture of their enamels, the result
of extensive experimentalizing, n
which they set high value on. The
general method of glass-eye making.
however, is by no means as mysterious
as it is interesting.
Artificial optics are made. in the first
place, upon a very minute description Of
the eye whose loss they are intended to
conceal. The color, shape, size and
general appearance of the sound eye are
| specified as closely IS possible, together
with the depth and dimensions OF the
empty socket, and the size of the stump.
| Forit must be known that there is
always, or almost always, a muscular
remnant of a lost eye left, to which the
hollow of the glass substitute is fitted.
Thanks to this stump, the wearer of a
glass eye may move it about almost as
naturally as if it were q real one.
Artificial eyes nowadays arc only a
light shell of enamel, differing very much
in form according to their wearers.
They are all made by hand, no mold Of
any kind being used, and the artitlclers
become so expert that a good workman
will produce an infinite number of eyes
so identical in form, size and color, that
it is impossible to distinguish between
them, with no other tools than his breath
and hands. Glass eyes, RS everybody
knows, are made to be placed under the
eyelid. They consist Of two distinct
shells, the exterior one, which presents
the aspect of the natural eye, &nd the
interior, or lining one, which is fitted to
the stump. The workman labors at a
table on which is lamp, to whose flame
the blast of q bellows worked with his
foot gives q pointed jet Of The varying
strength he may require.
The first process consists Of heating the
end of a hollow tube Of colcrless crystal,
Which is then blown into a. ball. This
transparent shell is colored to initiate
the sclerotica or white Of the eye with
enamels applied while the glass is still q
vitrcous paste. The tint of the white
varies from q very clear one to a bilious
yellow. according rs the person who is
to wear it has his other eye to match.
To such - fine point is this cJloring bust
ness carried, that it is affirmed to be a
very rere thing that glass eyes for any
two different people are exactly alike.
When the sclerotica is finished, a round
hole is made in the center to receive the
globe Of the eye. This vsries in size
even rs the white does in color. In
washing the globe the iris is first formed
out OF several amalgamated enamels. In
the center of this iris the pupil as fixed
in black enamel, encircled with its au-
reola, and finished by the delicate tracery
of those infinitely small fbera which arc
found in the iris of the natural eye.
The eye globe, when finished, is soldered
into the opening, in the sclerotica shell,
and the optic is after a little delicate
general fixing up, complete.
Artificial eyes are nearly rs old as
history. When an ancient Egyptian lost
an eye he replaced it with q kind Of
painted bandage, %concealing the socket
of the lost member. Later on, 4 metallic
shell was invented to fit in under the
eyelid. Glass eyes seem to have been
first made at the commencement OF the
present century. The earliest glass eyes
were solid; the pupil and iris being
painted on the rear surface with oil
co(ors. But these, like the rude work
Of the ancients, were q very poor
apology for real eyes, and deceived no
one with any eyes to see with. They
had an unalterable, dead, liked look
that was little, if anything, better to
gaze upon than the empty hole they
filled would have been. The discovery
of the value Of the eye stump as q motor
was the first step in the manufacture OF
glass ewes OF q really deceptive charac-
ter. Now some are made whose sham
it is really next to impossible to detect,
even by close scrutiny. At q casual
glance their counterfeit character passes
absolutely undiscovered. There is q
young society lady here who has worn
a glass eye from childhood. Vailed by
her lovely lashes which she has trained
to that languid dropping Which was a
historic characteristic of the eyes of
Napoleon the Third, no one of her many
intimates dreams that the dark orb
whose pensive beauty is SO much ad-
mired is u mere shell Of glass.
1t is in this that the perfection of the
eye-makcr's art consists. and out ofthis
that his profit comes. There are plenty
of glass eyes to be got cheap, like that Of
the old maid in Mark Twaiu's story,
which had to be stuffed around with
cotton to be kept in place, and which
had ouch an uncomfortable habit Of
dropping out in the middle offs sermon
and going rafting along the floor like the
glass alley of some careless urchin. But
\ good glass eye costs q good price, and,
as people who have to wear n gener-
ally keep q couple on hand in case of an
accident to which the frail objects ara
particularly liable, the eye-maker never
has to complain of dull times. Human
beings do not %monopolize his labors
altogether. Glass eyes have oeen made
to supply the gaps left by accident in the
heads Of both dogs and horses, and
these animals learn to wear them, it Isl
avcrred, as comfortably as their masters
can. 1t would be about the right thing
now 70. some one to invent false teeth
for the same brute benefit. A we'll
known sporting mar here actually has
the teeth of q valuable speeder plugged
with silver.
If the French have gained the
supremacu of the world in the matter oil
artificial eye-making, there is one sort OF
optics which they do not control the
manufacture of. One of the oldest in
dustries of Birmingham, England, is the
manufacture of dolls eyes. Several
thousands of persons are emplOyed at