The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1890-03-22
GLASS BOTTLE MAKING.

#&- 49,
GREAT DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED
IN THE UNITED STATES.
How tho Glass Industry Has Developed
Here and What Are some II the OBJ
stscles That Stand In the way Of III
Further Progress.
It has been said that no material in.
vented by man has been of more service
than glass. 1t is certainly one Of the
greatest necessities Of civilized life, com
ing into use in almost every department
Of activity, and it is one of the most in.
teresting industries. How the process Of
making it was aver discovered is q mys.
terry, and it taxes the imagination to con.
ceive some happy accident by which the
possibility Of such a substance was dis.
closed. The ancient Pliny has q yarn,
which perhaps he hslieved to be the ex-
PLANTATION, but nobody believes it today.
He says that some Phoenician sailors
landed on the bank of a river in Pales-
tine and looked about for stones on which
to rest the kettles in which they were to
cook their food. The best they could find
were Jumps of ''nitrum" probably soda
is meant). When these had become af-
fected by the fire they fused with the
sand and produced a transparent liquid,
which vitriied and became crude glass.
This pleasant fiction is discarded as
throwing no light ON the matter, because
the heat of a camp fire would be entirely
insufficient to produce the result de-
scribed.
The great antiquity of the industry is
clearly proven by the discovery of YES
sells with inscriptions to show that they
could not have been made later than 5000
years before the Christian era. Glass
making wa for many centuries confined
wholly to vases and other forms of hol-
low ware, and although plate glass was
known IS early as the Third century,
more than a thousand years passed be-
fore it came into general use for win
dows except in churches. 1t is said that
the first window glass taken to England
for ecclesiastical purposes was carried
there by the Abbot Benedict in 674 A. d.
As late as the Sixteenth century it was a
mark Of great wealth to have glass in
the windows of ones house.
The industry vas introduced into this
country o o after settlements had been
established, and though in the early colo
NAL days it did not make much Roadway
it has become a very important
feature Of our manufactures, and in
some departments it rivals any produc-
tons in the world. It took its prosper
Gus start SOC after the end of the Revo-
lutionary war. In the finer ornamental
grades no one would affirm for a moment
that the famous products of Venice and
Bohemia are duplicated here. They may
never be, as some of the ingredients are
not found in America, and the expense
of importation is so great as practically
to debar domestic enterprise in this direc-
ton.
Americas best hold on the glass in
dustry is in the way of plate glass for
windows and the manufacture Of bottles.
There are many prosperous factories in
both these departments scattered all
over the country, and the most marked
improvements in mechanical contriv-
ances during the last quarter of q CEN
fury have been introduced by American
manufacturers. The extent of the in
dustry at present compares curiously
with the disheartening results of colo
NAL enterprises. That there was a fac
tory in Gloucester, Mass, in the latter
part of the Seventeenth century is clear
from some vague records, and the name
of a portion of the town, Glasshouse
Field. Washington refers in his diary
to a factory at New Haven, Conn. In
other places it is known that the in
dustry was established, and disappeared
because Dutch and Germans could get
the product to this market cheaper than
we could make it. Probably the Oldest
house in the country now is the Whitney
works, at Glassboro, N. j. Bottles only
are made there. The factory was estab-
lished nearly 1875 years ago. Plate glass
began to be made in America as recently
as 1853, at Lenox, Mass. This factory
is still in existence, but its work is mainly
directed to trough plate;" that is, glass
intended for Conservatives, lighthouses
and other uses where a clear, polished
surface is not necessary.
Probably 90 people in 100 if asked
what glass was made of would answer
''sand." So it is in great part. Sand of
certain character is the main ingrcdi-
ent, but not necessarily the most impor-
tant. It is an old puzzle problem to de-
termine which factor Of a number, say
20, is of the greater importance, 2 or
10. Ten is certainly the greater factor,
but of what use would it be in consti-
20 if it were not for insignifi-
cant little 2? So with glass. Sand is the
greatest factor in bulk, but with it must
be used other substances-soda, potash,
lime, magnesia,. alumina, oxides Of iron
and lead, etc, one o. more of these In
different proportions, according to the
style Of glass desired.
OF course! exclaim the ninety-nine, We
might have mentioned soda or potash if
we had supposed that such a trifing in
gredient as 8 to IA per cent. Of either
were to be included in the answer. Very
good, but unhappily for American manu-
~facturers these trifirg ingredients are
absolutely necessary, and sometimes they
are very hard to get. This is especially
the case with makers of hollow ware. To
make q good bottle soda is necessary,
and soda Of a particular kind which has
to be imported. II our manufacturers
Of bottles could get the soda, even from
Europe, at what it actually costs, they
could more than compete with the Ger
mans. As it is, German beer bottles and
the like are crowding our markets every
year and making the domestic manufac-
turers hustle to secure a reasonable profit.