Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-01-19

and the pot placed in one of the ten
huge furnaces. This operation is called
placing the pot"
Under the intense heat of the furnace,
so many degrees that l am afraid to tell
you. the fires never 90 out from Septem-
Der LIST to July 31st, the mixture grad
ually melts, looking like molten iron.
only of more whitish color. The men
called gatherers, as their name implies,
g lher q ball of this liquid stand by
dipping the pipe into the crucible and
withdrawing it, allowing what clings to
the end to partially cool by slight con-
tact with warm water. ~
This process is continued until ball
is gathered as large as a WATERFALL.
This is then rolled around and around
in an iron bowl until it assumes a pear
shape. Then the "blower" takes it,
and now comes the hardest task in
glass blowing. In starting this solid,
red-hot, half-molten mass to expand
and assume shape something like our
common glass. so great are his efforts
that his cheeks expand to an enormous
size and the sweat starts out in huge
drops. But closely watching the half
transparent, glowing mass. you see Q
little blubber start in the center, and
thus it rapidly assumes a regular demi-
john shape, say, two feet long by one
in diameter. All this time it has been
rapidly revolved by the operator, par
taking shape from this iron bowl, and
having become sufficiently cool and hard
enough to bear lifting, it is by nice
movement swung upon a crane AMI
thrust into the furnace. where, by the
exact nicely of long experience. it is
kept in the intense heat until half melt
ed. 1t is then withdrawn and swung
by the operator from an elevated plat
form, roun an I round his head, much
as professional swings an Indian club,
meanwhile forcing air into it and sub.
iecting it to the heat when necessary,
until he has red-hot cylinder of aper.
feet glass, exact in proportions. and of
uniform thickness. five feet in length
and about fifteen inches in diameter.
These are then allowed to cool, and
are cut to one exact length. by stretch
ing small cord of molten glass around
the cylinder, allowing it to harden. and
then touching it with a cold iron. which
causes the warm crystals to contract so
quick that it cracks right off as smooth
and even as a carpenter could saw a
board. These cylinders are then cut
lengthwise in the same manner. and
are then subjected to heated furnace,
intense enough to cause them to wilt
down perfectly flat. This is called the
''t1attening process" The sheets are
then revOlved around on an endless
moving platform, something like a
straw-carrier of threshing machine.
until cooled and tempered. They are
carriedto the butting and packing room
where they are made into various sized
sheets, or more properly panes, to suit
the demand, and packed in the manner
familiar to all and sent to all parts of
the world. To conclude, it might not
be out of the way to add that the fac
tory l visited had twelve blowers.
They all belong to 1.-The Glass Blowers
Union" and are permitted to blow only
so many cylinders a day ninety being
the number, l believe. They earn from
1925 to $3.50 month, according to the
number of days they work. But it is a
fatal trade. The poisonous gases. etc.,
that they inhale, more or less, renders
long life in the glass-blowing business
an impossibility. 1t is rarity to meet
a glass-blower over thirty-ive years old.
Cor. Rochester Democrat.