The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1899-03-02
MIRRORS or ANTIQUITY.
Ingenious Glasses In which Bellies
of Thrace Viewed Themselves.

4
Ingenious Glasses In which Bellies
of Thrace Viewed Themselves.
There is room for long dissertations
upon the part played by the mirror in
ancient and modern times. He must
have been very great man who first
invented the mirror, and it is most
unjust that his name has not descended
to posterity. For an image of herself
woman T5as long forced to be content
with gazing into some limpid stream or
spring, but as sooner or later she must
always have her wish it came to pass
that mirrors made their appearance in
rude form at first, soon in more elegant
style In very early times, as civiliza-
ton advanced, genuine mirrors were
produced. A good many are found, evil
IDENTIFY dating back to the third and
fourth centuries, yet real objects of art.
In 1897 NJ TIL. Habert, superintendent
of the Archaeological museum Of
Rheims, collected number from Gall
ic-Roman tombs These little mirrors
had been made by the simple process of
blowing large glass bubble and cut"
ting out of it with scissors curved
fragment. Melted lead was then poured
into the concavity of these slight shells,
which remind us of the glasses of our
watches, and each mirror was mounted
| in little metal frame.
| What is curious is the general extent
of this manufacture. Recently three
very similar mirrors, coming from such
widely separated regions as Roman
Thrace and Byzantine Egypt, and all
of the same composition, have been
submitted to M. Berthelot for examina-
| tion.
| In 1895 the ruins of a rustic temple
dedicated by the Thracians of the Sec
ond and third centuries of our era to
the naiads of the adjacent stream were
discovered near little Bulgarian vii
lage. Among other objects brought to
light were Is little round glass mirrors,
each mounted on stand and encircled
| by metal frame. It is one of these lit
| tie mirrors, bearing on the back of the
frame plate with the Greek inscrip-
ton, ct am beauty, that M. Berthelot
has pronounced to be votive offering
to the divinities of the rustic temple. 1t
|
no metal but pure lead.
In 1857, in the researches institut
ed by the Guimet museum among the
ruins of the Egyptian city of Arsinoe,
four burial places were discovered be-
| longing to different periods Roman,
| Byzantine and Copt. Here again, among
many mirrors lined with lead, M.
Berthelot examined two distinct types.
One exhibited a plaster frame of pen
| tagonal form, with sort of triangular
pediment, beneath which is imbedded
the convex lead lined mirror. All around
| it irregular fragments of glass are in
serted into the plaster as if for orna-
mentation. Whether this coarse mirror
was intended for the toilet table or for
some other purpose does not appear.
| The second type was found in By
zantine tomb-a mirror in the hands of
a very young girl. It is quite elegant
and somewhat similar to the one taken
! from the Thracian temple-a convex
glass mirror, lined with lead and set
with somewhat elaborate metal frame
It is more brilliant than the other and
reflects very accurately.
In fact, it is evident that the manu-
| facture of glass mirrors lined with lead
extended throughout the Roman en-
pire, from Gaul and Thrace into Egypt.
These mirrors are brilliant and reflect
clearly, but they are affected by damp
ness. Their fabrication continued
| through the middle ages, according to
| Vincent de Beauvais until the fifteenth
century, when the discovery of the
properties of tin amalgam made it pos
sible to apply the cold metal to plane
surfaces and to give the glass sufficient
solidity and thickness to permit of it's
perfect polishing, at the same time that
it could be cut regularly by means of
| the diamond. The old method of cover
| ing glass with lead still fingers in Italy,
| and they sell in Florence today little
mirrors closely resembling those of an
tiquity, with the difference that they
| are fat, thicker and more brilliant.
The mirror is the object that offers
the greatest resistance to the centuries,
from it's birth at the dawn Of civiliza-
ton. On the mirror Of Sofia may be
read for perhaps the hundred thou
sandth time, st am beauty. Perhaps,
after all, the first mirror was invented
! by Eve Paris Annales Politique.
| A Famous Piano Teacher at Work.
SIN the room where the work goes on
/ o,.o 4xx7O orT.or1 71ion0c ono FOR T,oCph0-