The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1889-08-10
THE GLASS INDUSTRY.
lass BEADS and Imitation Gems - How
sne Early Inventors Were Treated-The
Fosslbilities of the Future.


.ne Early Inventors Were Treated-The
disabilities of the Future.
Ihe best wages in the glass industry
are received by the window-glass blow
ers' sometimes reaching $12 per day.
me master meters rank next, though
tney seldom get more than half that
amount From these earnings the
prices slope down to the small tending
boys, who are paid thirty cents for ten
hours work. The blowers occupation
Is laborious, but not unhealthful. He
works eight or ten hours at stretch,
nnlshiGg one melt of glass. There are
Tour or five mslts every week, each re-
curing sixteen hours to fuse, ten hours
OF blowing and ten hours of flatteniug.
lns work is always by the piece. and
In teams or in "shops," each composed
OF one master-workman and several
younger assistants.
There are in operation in the United
States about one hundred and sixty
furnaces, at which there are employed
about 1000 blowers, gatherers, flat
teners and cutters. They are bound
together by a union that dictates the
quntity each workman may make,
thnumber of apprentices that may be
tahn generally not more than two to
a3AFaaee}, that prohibits any foreign
Wtkuan from getting a place in the
faetries, or any glass from being made
in II months of July and August. The
averSe time they have worked in the
last ftr years has been less than eight
month and half. Much of the time
lost ha been spent in strikes or dis
putes With the manufacturers about
wages.
Most ofhe worlds beads are Vene-
tan. In We island of Murano thou
sand worhnen are devoted to this
branch. TIE first process is to draw
the glass int tubes Of the diameter of
the proposed5ead. Tor this purpose
the glasshous, at Munno has a kind of
rope-walk gallery $50 feet long. BY
gathering various colots from different
pots and twisting them into one mass
many combinations of color are made.
The tubes are carefully sorted by diam
eters, and Clipped into fragments of
uniform size. These pieces are stirred
in mixture of sand and ashes, which
fills the holes and prevents the sides
from closing together when they are
heated. They are next placed in a
kind of frying-pan, and constantly
stirred over fire until the edges are
rounded into globular form. When
cool they are shaken in one set of
sleeves until the ashes are separated,
and in another series of sleeves until
they are perfectly sorted by sizes.
Then they are threaded by children,
tied in bundles, and exported to the
ends of the earth. France has long
produced the pearl beads which in
the liner forms are close limitations of
pears. They are said to have been in
vented by M. Joaquin. in 1856. The
common variety threaded for ornament
Z blown from glass tubes. An expert
fSorkmen can blow 5000 or 5000
globules in a day. They are lined
with powdered fish scales and filled
with wax. 1t takes 10000 fish to make
apound of the scaly essence of pearl.
Until recently the heirs of Joaquin still
carried on large factory of these
mock pearls. The best of them are
blown irregular to counterfeit nature,
some in pear shape, others like olives,
and they easily pass for genuine.
Imitation gems formerly employed
the chief attention of the highest artifi-
GERS in glass. They are still the chief
idea of ornamental glass in China. In
the ancient and middle ages they cir
culated everywhere without much dan
ger of discovery, and their formulas
we're held as precious secrets. Blan-
court first published their compositions
in 1896. Now they are common prop,
erty; and with growth of science in the
past century an expert knowledge has
become widely disseminated which
easily detects the paste from the real
jewel, particularly as the modern false
stones are less successful copies than
the old glassmakers produced. More
study is now given to artificial gems,
which are true gems, being composed
Of the same materials as the genuine
ones, but manufactured.
The future of the glass industry in
the United States is encouraging, for it
is only since the war that the manu-
facture Of polished plate has grown up;
and there are now running or building
enough furnaces to supply all that will
be used in the country. 1t is within
the last ten years that the manufacture
of cathedral and rough plate has been
thoroughly established, at first disput-
ing and now controlling the home mar
ket against England and Belgium. The
improvement in window-glass has also
been great, and there are workmen
and manufacturers who think they see
the rising sun of much better days and
a much better American glass. The