350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



previously covered with etcher's varnish, which is removed from the 

 lines of the engraving, where the bare glass is afterward exposed 

 to hydrofluoric acid. In this way are produced the wave designs 

 resembling those which are seen on the more finely engraved bank- 

 notes. 



In another very recent style of ornamentation, fine Venetian glass- 

 pearls of various colors are glued by a very fusible enamel upon the 

 surface of the finished vessel. As the arrangement is made in the 

 cold, the work admits of a complete artistic freedom. The enamel is 

 then dried and the setting is fixed by heating. 



Another important function of the melting-furnaces is to furnish 

 raw material for the now considerable small-glass industries in the 

 shape of sticks and fragments of colored glass. The favorite color for 

 these is a dark violet or black ; but colorless glass is used for the pend- 

 ants of chandeliers, and they are sometimes given a reddish tint by 

 overlaying them thinly with gold-ruby. Sticks partly overlaid with 

 opaque glass are used in a similar manner. There are always accumu- 

 lating, in the glass-houses and other shops, piles of droppings, over- 

 flows, and pieces of many colors, which can be sold for very cheap prices. 

 All this stuff is pounded up and mixed together with the addition of 

 manganese or other coloring oxides, and is remelted in a special fur- 

 nace. The workmen take out suitable quantities of this mass, and, by 

 a series of deft manipulations, form it into sticks about as thick as 

 one's thumb. 



Very thin globes of about the size and shape of a vitriol-flask are 

 made from the same dark glass, to be again broken up into sherds, 

 which can be packed away in boxes. The manufacturer cuts from 

 these sherds slightly curved plates, such as are used, for example, as 

 foundations for brocades. 



The shops of the small-workers are of the simplest character. 

 Wherever one of the numerous little streams makes it possible to get 

 water-power enough to drive a grinding and polishing wheel, and in 

 the modest houses scattered along the mountain-slopes, may be found 

 the establishments of these industrials, in which the working force of 

 the whole family finds active employment. The artisan buys his 

 sticks and sherds from the glass-house. A little wood-furnace, some- 

 what like a tinker's furnace, gives facilities for heating four or five of 

 the glass sticks at once, which are taken out and used alternately as 

 the ends are softened in the fire. The softened end is fastened upon 

 by a pair of pincers, drawn out a little, and introduced into a mold in 

 which is carved the figure of the object into which it is designed to 

 be formed, and which is firmly stamped upon it by closing the mold 

 and the application of pressure. If the mold is too cold, the form will 

 be imperfectly made and the glass will be brittle ; if it is too hot, the 

 glass is liable to stick in it. Fortunately, it can be easily worked to a 

 suitable temperature. The molded pieces are thrown into an earthen 



