El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-03-04
ARKANSAS To
Be 4 CLASS
CENTER
Enormous Bed of Glass Sand
There May Revolutionize
Industry.
GLASS TELEGRAPH
POLES IN GERMANY
CBy FREDERIC !. HaskInN

Plttsburg, Mass, March 4-The re-
cent discovery OF an enormous bed of
glass sand in Arkansas, believed TO
be practically inexhaustible in extent.
has given considerable impetus to the
already thriving glass industries Of
that state This sand vein, which Is
said to have a uniform thickness OF
at least % feet has been submitted to
seTerest tests and its quality proves to
be 90 percent pure silicon, so that the
production Of glass Of the highest
grade is assured. The location is upon
one Of the highest points between St. I
Louis and the Gulf Of Mexico and plans
for the utilization Of this newly dis
covered resource are already well IN
der way. Extensive new sand fields
also have been opened up during the
last year in Tennessee which, it is
claimed, viii give to that state nearly {
100000 acres Of glass sand fields, l
most OF which is OF exceptional quail !
ity.
May RevOIutiOniEe Industry.
Such discoveries as these, together !
with the new mechanical methods /
which Yankee ingenuity is using to
supply many Of the old processes. bids I
1alr 10 make glass manufacturing one 4
OF the leading industries Of this cOun- /.
try within few years. Each year in !
creases the demand for American glass /
products IN foreign countries and les Z
sens the need OF importing foreign ]
glass products for American use There /!
Is no finer art glass produced in the /
world than now can be manufactured 1
in the United States. The secrets so 1
carefully guarded by the old glass l
makers seem TO have been rediscov-
cred. or else better formulas have been /
substituted for them, so that Ameri- /
can glass factories can turn out vases, /
bottles and other articles having the I
character stics of the ancient Saracen.
Persian. Syrian or Phoenician glasses /
or the more modern Bohemian glass
ware.
Discovered BY Egyptians.
Glass making is believed to have
been discovered by the Egyptians as
early as $500 years before Christ. It
was first used as a glaze for decOrat-
ing tiles, fgurines and other articles
It was used as a substance about 1900
b c. and was plentiful in the time Of
the Romans. who used it extensively
for making toilet articles as well as
for objects OF personal adOrnment. {
They carried il into all Of the coun- I
tries which were visited by their SOL
dies Pliny, writing before his death I
in A. D. %, says Of the contemporary {
artists: They carve glass more ex-
quisitely than silver" The Romans
used glass, not only for household
uLEIELE ana QEndIue uLSr DuL also IN D
cOrpOrated il into their mural mosaics
and in the tasselated pavements Of
their floors.
Glass making was one Of the earliest
industries in America One Of the
first glass factories was esta blished Z
at Mannheim. Lancaster county. Penn
sylTania, and between the years 1851
and lI44 1t was under the direction Of
Baron William Henry StiegeI OF Ger
many me products OF this factory
were Of recognized merit and Stiegel
glass nowadays is much priced by
collectors. Among the most frequent
specimens now found are small footed.
gOblet-Shaped salt cups in white or
dark blue glass. and cologne bottles
with shoppers Of blue or purple glass.
These have been much copied by mod
ern glass makers within the last two
or three years. but the imitation Z
feet symmetry. The old glass pieces
were fashioned entirely by hand tools I
and were more or less crooked and ir-
regular in shape The old shoppers
for bottles were crude, while the mod
ern ones are perfectly formed and are
usually ground at the base. StieCel
glass was shipped from Philadelphia l
to Boston in large quantities. which
accounts for the number Of pieces TO (
be found in New England by the an
tique collectors Of the present
Glass was extensively manufactured Z
At Pittsburg at a very early date. The /
-dnQ was EdLueEeQ III the river Val
eys, hauled to the rivers. loaded on
Hat boats and flOated in to PittsbUrg.
glass was made extensively
here The slabs for packing the first
window glass were split from the
timber with a broad ak. Boxes Of
window glass floated when dropped
into the water, because OF the thick
ness Of the boards and the thinness
Of the glass. Sandwich, Massac husetts,
also was the seat Of early glass in
1ustries and one OF the articles pro-
duced at Sandwich was the glass cur
tain knob which is so popular with
the lover OF antiques and which is now
initiated by the glass forger.
Eliminating the Glass Blower.
Originally glass making was purely
a handicraft, requiring little machin-
cry and few tools. The skilled glass
blower needed only one or two IN
skilled assistants to clean his blow
pipes Later, moulds were introduced
10 aid the blower in shaping his ar
-icles. Still later mechanical devices
we're used which pressed the simpler
articles into shape without the need
# blow pipe. Finally machines were
produced which actually blew glass