GLASS-MAKING. 169 



boys looked up. The story was soon told : to become glass-blow- 

 ers, and to have plenty to eat that was all ; a life centered about 

 bottles. Yet, among so many bright-faced lads, there are doubt- 

 less many of considerable promise, could their imaginations only be 

 fired by some well-directed effort. Some one with a passion for 

 culture and a big human heart could do great things, it seemed 

 to me, with such quick, observant material. 



With the older workers the dice have been cast, and life is well 

 crystallized. It has left them divided into two classes : the green- 

 glass blowers, who are chiefly Americans, and the flint-glass blow- 

 ers, who are more largely Germans. Both bodies of men are closely 

 organized, and as a result make excellent wages. The union to 

 which they belong will not permit more than two apprentices a 

 year to a single furnace. Such a regulation, with the annual in- 

 crease of the industry and the inevitable deaths, practically ex- 

 cludes competition. The blowers make on an average five dollars 

 a day. In rare cases as much as three hundred dollars a month 

 has been paid to a single man. So large returns, however, are only 

 possible for blowers and gaffers. The other members of the shop, 

 as well as the numerous helpers employed in the conduct of such 

 large enterprises, receive regular wages. 



One other feature deserves mention. Throughout the entire 

 works there is observable that marked tendency of modern indus- 

 trial life to substitute continuous, automatic processes for those 

 which are periodic and manual. The continuous annealing leer is 

 taking the place of the oven ; the steady flow of gaseous fuel is re- 

 placing the oft-repeated shovelful of coal ; the continuous melting 

 tank has been substituted for the discontinuous reservoir system 

 represented by the crucible pots ; the uninterrupted automatic 

 charging of the furnace is about to do away with the manual 

 feeding of the batch every three hours ; and similarly, in all depart- 

 ments, the change is in progress. The operations of blowing have 

 not yet been made automatic. Bottles but an inch long are still 

 produced by the blower's breath, and little boys dispose of them 

 one by one. But it is not improbable, in spite of the difficulties 

 in the way, that a patent bottle-blowing machine will some day 

 take the place of the army of workers who now swarm around 

 the gathering chamber of a glass-furnace. Such a machine already 

 exists in the brain of a man. When it is materialized into a work- 

 ing fact, the last step in perfecting the evolution of a glass bottle 

 will have been taken, and any further development will be along 

 lines already laid down. 



11* 



