The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-04-24
EARLY HISTORY Of
THE BOTTLE
How ReCeptaCIeS Were For
merly Made and How
Made Today.
OLDEST MADE OF SKINS
TRUE BOTTLE NEVER A THING
OF MUCH BEAUTY.

London. April 23.-Although the
oldest bottles known were made of
skins. glass BOTTLES containing wine are
represented in Egyptian monuments
which are more than 1000 years old,
while as early as the Pharaoh OF the
Exodus there were bottles made Of
bronze, silver gold porcelain and ala
baster. which from their superior work.
manshiD and elegant design, go 10
prove that even at that period the art
Of bottle making was by no means II
its infancy.
The early history of the bottle is
some what meager, owing, no doubt, 20
the fact that the true bottle has never
been a thing of much beauty, except
in a few rare instances, but rather a
humble vessel Of no intrinsic value.
Bottles are made today in stupendous
quantities and are of all sorts, sizes and
descriptions. In the manufacture or a
common bottle either sand, soap boilers
waste brick clay or other materials ac-
cOrding to locality are used. Having
been run down into a molten mass the
metal is SKINNED and the first opera
tor, known as the "gatherer," takes a
little of the glass on the end of a
heated pipe. When this has cooled
somewhat he gain dips his pipe into the
glass, having gathered" in the two
dips sufficient to make bottle. This
he hands en- to the blower" who, as
he blows through the tube, rolls the
metal on a stone, thereby fashioning
the bottle neck. The roughly shaped
mass is then placed in a mould and the
operator continues to blow until he has
brought il to the required form.
After this the bottle is handed on TO
the finisher, who, by touching the meek
with a small bit Of iron, dipped in
water, completely sewers II from the
pipe. He attaches the pontee, an iron
Instrument dipped in molten glass, to
L., - h hot md civ
IL the usual rounded shape This pom
tee may be used for from twenty to
tWenty-four dozen bottles. Then,
warming the bottle at tie furnace, the
finisher takes a small quantity Of tho
metal on what is known as ring iron,
and, turning it round the mouth, forms
the ring seen at the top of the neck.
In the center of one blade of the shears
is a piece of brass, tapering like a
cork which forms the inner mouth,
while the other blade has a piece OF
brass fastened to IT, for the purpose OF
shaping the ring. A boy htts the com
pleted bottle on a fork, and ii is taken
TO the annealing arch, which contains
about ten or twelve gross OF bottles
placed in bins, one above the other.
These are the processes which even
the cheapest and most ordinary bottle
ass TO go through, SO IT can well be
imagined what an infinitude of care and
trouble IS needed to produce a bottle
Of the finest grade.
Bottles are rarely mentioned IN ftc-
tion but one must not forget the story
OF the bottle spirit in Grimm's, nor that
of the broken bottle neck in the fairy
tales of Hans Anderson, which latter
IS almost more fascinating to older
people than to children, owing 70 the
clever way in which the bottle neck
endows itself with a personality. The
graceful old 1agOns. the demijOhns, and
the queer shaped bottles at one time
used to contain a certain renowned
Dutch brew. all recall the bygOne
drinking days when it was considered
no disgrace to be a two bottle man."
ard when the custom of Joining the
ladies'" was more hOnOred in the breach
than in the observance, the host and his
male guests have more commonly Joined
one anOther-under the table Many of
me labOring class followed the example