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THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



To begin now with the technical part 

 of my lecture I will say that one of the 

 earliest industries that we have upon 

 the earth is the fabrication of glass. As 

 early as the time of the ancient Egyp- 

 tians, some say 3000 years B. C, these 

 people knew how to make glass, — a cer- 

 tain kind of glass, — not the glass we 

 know of in the shape of windows, that is 

 a far more recent acquisition, — not even 

 the glass we know of in our utensils and 

 vials, that is a modern acquisition; the 

 glass of small vials (which by the way 

 were used for the preservation of tears in 

 the tombs) , for the formation of artificial 

 gems and amulets, charms and things of 

 this kind, — these were the first and ear- 

 liest efforts of the Egyptians in this man- 

 ufacture. Now, the materials used in 

 the manufacture of glass are first, sand, 

 combined with some kind of lime or cal- 

 careous substance, and another material, 

 a sample of which I have here, in the 

 form of soda. Now, the earliest alkali 

 that was used in the formation of glass 

 was a natural substance that came out of 

 the earth, and of which we have some 

 very wonderful examples in the United 

 States to day. At Ragtown in Nevada 

 and certain other places are alkali lakes, 

 also some places in Colorado near Carson 

 City show an incrustation upon the 

 shores that is practically a crude carbon- 

 ate of soda, — a similar material to this 

 was found in Egypt and utilized in these 

 crude efforts in the manufacture of glass. 



Glass was introduced into Europe dur- 

 ing the Crusades, that is the time that 

 the European nation was at war with the 

 Saracens, and the sand and the alkali 

 were brought from Egypt on purpose to 

 manufacture glass. There is a story 

 going that the Queen of Sheba visited 

 Solomon, and he wished to do something 

 very remarkable to surprise her and he 

 caused her to walk over a transparent 

 pavement where she could see the water 



running beneath and fish swimming in it. 

 This story is probably a fable. 



In fact windows were first used during 

 the second and third centuries; in Eng- 

 land York Cathedral had glass windows 

 in 1334 and they cost 12 cents a square 

 foot for the greenest kind of glass, to-day 

 we would not use it in the commonest 

 bottles, — they were very expensive and 

 in ordinary houses oil paper and lattice 

 work were used instead of glass. Now, 

 this glass made in the different ways I 

 have mentioned whether painted glass or 

 glass bottles, has 16 or 17 per cent, of 

 the weight of glass in soda or potash or 

 some alkaline materials of that kind. 



After the introduction of glass into 

 Europe, it became very evident that the 

 sending to Egypt for the alkali was an 

 expensive arrangement and the people 

 sought to find some other means of get- 

 ting alkaline substances; they found that 

 the ashes of certain sea-weeds when 

 leached out gave an alkali, — these ashes 

 were called kelp, — the French calling 

 them Varec, and this earthy material of 

 which I have a small sample here was 

 the next substance used in the manufac- 

 ture of glass. 



There was also raised about this time 

 in Spain and along the shores of the 

 Mediterranean certain plants of the Sal- 

 sola order, called Saltwort and varieties 

 of this kind; they went under the name of 

 Barilla from the ashes of which was ob- 

 tained a remarkable amount of alkali. The 

 improvement of the alkali brought from 

 Spain ruined the kelp industry as it was 

 so much better than this kelp or Varec 

 used before and burnt along the coasts of 

 Scotland and also on the coast of Ireland 

 that the industry almost failed. This 

 state of affairs continued up to about the 

 beginning of this century. In 1799 a 

 Frenchman named Leblanc invented the 

 method of obtaining the alkali from 

 common salt. I want to tell you some- 



