Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1908-10-14
"A GLASS WORKS.
How Bottles are Made--NIany Freaks
OF the Blowpipe.
(LondOn GlObe.)

III stranger enters the glass works
on a dark night he will find not only
beauty in the blowing operations, but
a great deal of humor, with an un-
canny weirdness in flame and shadow
that must affect his Imagination to
some extent. The building is circu-
lar, with a chimney sticking up
through the middle of it, from the
top or which a peculiar Intermittent
light is hickering. In the center of
this building, underneath the CHM
ney, stands conical furnace of brick
containing, perhaps, no fewer than
eight holes, which are like fiercely
slaring suns, and from which pour
expanding broad rays of orange-col-
ored light. If your eyes are strong
enough to look through the holes
from which the orange beams of
light emerge, you see several hum
dred weight of molten metal shining
silvery green in as many earthen-
dome shape melting pots.
The nature Of different kinds of
glass Is dependent upon the quality
or the raw ms .erial called batch"
put into the melting pots. Batch"
is mixture of such materials as
Calais sand, or common river sand
abounding in silica, salt-calle, or So
dunn carbonate, and much lime
Blue colors may be obtained by add.
ang oxide of cobalt, green by means
OF chronic, black by manganese
and amber. The mass Of molten
metal got from this Opaque, earthly
looking batch" has frequently to
be SKINNED Of impurities; but it is,
nevertheless, problem whence
comes that wonderful and enduring
transparency which everybody likes
to see in glass.
Until the hour strikes for the
workmen to commence operations
you may find them experimenting for
amusement or profit with the blow
pipe. 1t will not be a blowing match
FOR beer to slake the thirst Of these
xnen. You will see many an enor-
mity produced in 81" =, the like of
which can scarcely e ave been
dropped from puntil before. Spe-
cimens are blown out to the thinness
of tissue paper bag, which another
puff OF wind eXplodes with crack;
or glowing glass pear is, for very
wantonness, knocked off the puntil
so that 1t may vanish with a report
on the floor, its hue and heat being
eXtinguished Immediately. The floor
all around the furnace-chamber is
covered with brittle shining splinters
and particles Of glass, which crackle
Anderfoot at every step. One Of the
men may bring you a mass Of me al
on blowpipe and ask you &c ey-
pend few cheekfuls of wind upon
1t. The pipe takes no more blowing
than trombone, though it lacks the
mouthpiece, and you may expand the
bubble until 1t IS black and cold, so
fragile that it will break into a
myriad OF pieces If you touch it..
The molten mass is so ductile that
1T may be spun out into a thread,
and the men often vie with each
other to see who can make the long
est and thinnest strand.
At the signal to commence work
the men, already partly stripped to
the waist, poke their four-foot blow
pipe through the hole of the crucible
opposite to which they work, twist
ing 1T round until it has taken up
Suihcient OF the r0py and viscid glass
for one bottle. The man who Is
clever at his work will, Of course,
gather up neither too much nor too
little for the thickness of the bottle
required; he can tell YOU without
looking through the furnace holes
when he has enough by the weight
added to his pipe. Thus, all around
the fiery furnace there are figures
moving continually across the lur!d
Ight, most Of them deXterOuslv
welding their blow-pipeS, and bal
ancing at the end OF each one the
exact quantity of vitrined matter to
make bottle. The amateur would
find it difficult to balance the molten
mass: the chances are that it would
drop on the floor, never to be picked
Up again.
At the same moment you will see
bottles in all stages Of growth, some
Blittering gold, others cooling down
TO orange or red; some in the forms
or plummets or dazzling pears, 9TH