Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-11-24
Waiting for Train at W1nslow
Junction, N. j.


ash, lime and arsenic melted togetl
er. Occasionally lead is melted wit
the compound when especially stron
glass is desired.
The mixture is put in large kettle
of iron called pots, which are bricke
up in the form of chimney wit
holes left at the sides so you coul,
look down and place blow pipes il
and get fire of half molten glass oil
the end. The blow pipes are Ions
irons with holes through the center
and wooden mouth pieces at one end
The holes in the chimney are abou
eight feet above the floor of the glas:
house and five feet above the moutl
of the pot and are reached by a mar
row plank. Five or SIX pots are SCI
in a row generally, and the glass is
taken from the pots by sticking the
end of a blow pipe into it and work
ing it around until enough adheres
for a blow. Then it is taken out and
water poured the length of the pipe
to cool the iron, and the ''gob' (molt-
en- glass the size of your two fists) on
the end placed on fiat stone or piece
of marble and rolled until it assumes
the shape of a crooked neck squash
with the crook broken off midway.
Then it is blown into and through the
pipe, until it looks about the size of
a foot ball. All this is done by a
man called a gatherer, as he gathers
the glass from the pots. Then it is
taken by the blower, who gets on to
the plank that leads to the pot, and
holding the blow pipes with the glass
downward blows and swings the pipe
back and forth. Out, out expands
the glass into a cylinder five feet long
and two and half feet in circumfer-
ence. The blower thrusts the end of
the cylinder which has bulb end
into the hole in the chimney over the
pot and lets it heat for a minute or
so, and then blows through the pipe.
The bulb at the end bursts, leaving
as square an end as though it had
been sawed off. Then the cylinder
is laid on rack, being carried by the
/
blow pipe which it still adkeres to in
formation similar to a bulb. The
pipe is detached and the end squared
to correspond to the end of the cylin-
der by taking a piece of red hot glass,
which pulls like molasses candy, and
placing it around as string is tied
around pencil and rapping the cyl
inder back of where the string of
glass is. There are two kinds of
blowers, single strength and double
strength, the former blowing regular
thick land the latter double thick win
dow glass.
The glass cylinders are taken from
the blower room to place called the
fattening room, from the fact that
the tubes are fiattened out and made
level to cut up into various window
sizes. There is large oven on
half CIRCLE made of brick with a re-
volving bottom OF stone which turns
with a crank, passing over three fires
of different degrees of heat. The
half-cir oven connects with long
brick passage resembling an oven, at
the bottom of which there are rollers
run by pulling a brake. A cylinder
of glass is placed in the oven over
the first fire. straight red hot iron
is placed lengthways of it from the
inside and Immediately taken away.
Then the bottom of the oven revolves
and the glass is over the second fire
of stronger heat, where q stick is
placed in the center of it and it is
turned round and round. Presently
it begins to cape open as it were,
where the iron had touched it. Again
the oven revolves and the glass is
over the last and hottest fire of all.
1t then spreads apart and hard
piece of level wood is rubbed over it
and il is as fiat as founder. O
would not use the expression foun-
der, had | not just purchased one of
fisherman and taken it home, an
ticipating fish dinner and had my
pleasure spoiled by the cook showing
me that it was rotten. | am now let
ting the boarding house run itself.)
After the glass becomes fat the oven
revolves again and it is caught by
man, on an arm, wood scoop or tongs
of wood and passed along to the rolls
in the connecting passage way and
the brake pulled connecting with the
same at the other end, where the
glass comes out ready to be cut up
into various sizes.
The glass for bottles is made the
same as window glass. The amber
colored is produced by mixing coke
burnt coaD with the sand, soda ash,
etc.
The mixture is put in pots the same
as window glass, but there are no
plank walks as there are no long cyl
inders to blow or swing. Most of
the blowers gather their own glass
and those who do not have boys, as
it is not hard work compared with
the window gathering. A ''gob'' of
glass from an eighth to a fourth the
size of the window glass is taken for
a bottle of ordinary size. For in
stance, to make pint bottle the
amount on the blow pipe would be
about the size of butternut. 1t is
rolled on stone and blown in until it