108 On the Manufacture of Glass, Porcelain, ^c. 



many persons could not be persuaded that the Romans used it, 

 though represented in the paintings of Pompeii with the most 

 unquestionable truth, and a pane of glass, and numerous frag- 

 ments of broken bottles, had been discovered in that excavated 

 city. The fact, however, became established, and these doubts 

 were silenced ; still it was questioned whether the invention 

 dated before the destruction of that city ; the glass was much 

 condemned as of inferior quality ; and the authority of Pliny,* 

 previously disbelieved, was now welcomed as an old friend, 

 and called forth to prove that glass was a late discovery of 

 some Phoenician mariners, who having lighted a fire on the 

 sea-shore, and supported their cooking utensils on blocks of 

 nitre, were taught by the union of the fused substances the se- 

 cret of this useful invention. The Roman naturalist had fixed 

 no time for this event, and if he spoke of improvements in the 

 art, introduced in the reign of Tiberius, it was presumed that, 

 though a vitrified substance was known, its qualities were not 

 properly understood, and that its discovery only dated about 

 the Augustan age. They even objected, that, under the first 

 Emperors, windows were made of a transparent stone, brought 

 from Spain and other countries, called Lapis specularis ; and 

 they hence inferred the imperfect knowledge of glass. 



This stone is now well known under the name of mica ; it 

 was only used in the houses of the rich, in litters, or as an or- 

 nament to the best apartments ; other persons being content 

 with linen, horn, or paper. 



Such were the feeble arguments brought forward to disprove 

 the use of glass, for vases and for ornamental purposes, among 

 the Romans ; but with much less reason did they apply to its 

 invention in other countries ; and though the Egyptians never 

 knew the necessity, or rather the annoyance, of glass windows, 

 under a burning sun, they were well acquainted with vases of 

 that material ; and the workmen of Thebes and Memphis, and 

 subsequently Alexandria, were famed for the excellent qualities 

 of glass-ware they produced, with which Rome continued to 

 be supplied, long after Egypt became a province of the Em- 



