THE BLASCHKA FLOWER MODELS. 663 



THE BLASCHKA FLOWER MODELS OF THE 

 HARVARD. MUSEUM. 



By MAECIA E. HALE. 



THE Ware Collection of glass flower models in the Univer- 

 sity Museum of Cambridge is now so widely known and 

 appreciated that a written introduction to it seems at first super- 

 fluous. Still, the fact remains that the interest and curiosity felt 

 in regard to the history of the collection increase in proportion 

 to its increasing fame. 



Among the vast number of people who visit the exhibition 

 rooms of the botanical department of the museum there must be 

 few who do not feel on leaving that a revelation has been dis- 

 closed to them. The savant finds the rendering of the minutest 

 details of vegetable organism almost inconceivably accurate, 

 while the general public can hardly fail to derive from the 

 beauty of these models an awakening interest in the mysteries of 

 plant life. 



Before considering the scope of the collection it might be well 

 to examine the nature of the models themselves. 



To the casual observer it seems almost incredible that these 

 sprays of leaf and blossom these magnified details of flower 

 and fruit, true to Nature not only in form and color but also 

 in texture that these models before us should be made of 

 glass. Not even the daintiest productions of the Venetian and 

 Bohemian glass workers have prepared us for the delicacy and 

 pliability which we find here, and it seems hardly necessary to 

 state that the process employed in making these models is in no 

 sense that of ordinary glass blowing. From the simpler methods 

 of making window glass and bottles to the artistic fashioning of 

 such work as this is a wide step, and it may be interesting to 

 sketch incidentally a brief outline of the history of glass making. 



The origin of this art, unlike that of pottery, seems to have 

 spread from a single center, instead of having been discovered by 

 different nations independently. The early history of the art is 

 shrouded in the dim mists of tradition, but the ancients seem to 

 agree in giving the credit of the invention to the Phoenicians. 



The story is too well known to need repetition of the party of 

 Phoenician merchants who, having kindled a fire on the banks of 

 the river Belus, proceeded to cook their dinner in pots supported 

 by blocks of niter (carbonate of soda) supplied from their stores, 

 in place of the stones which this sandy region did not furnish. 

 Under the heat of the flames the fusion of the alkali with the 

 sand produced glass. Thus far tradition. The earliest known 

 specimens of glass, however, are Egyptian, and there may be 



