THE GLASS INDUSTRY. 595 



made possible our own plentiful output of beautiful and inexpen- 

 sive tableware, as well as of artistic panels used in transoms and 

 elsewhere. The pressed glass is not, of course, so brilliant as the 

 cut, but it has the merit of costing less than one twentieth as 

 much, and therefore of being within the reach of all. Later, the 

 glass works were operated by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Com- 

 pany, and enjoyed quite a boom during the civil war. The stock 

 commanded a ready market and became one of the conservative 

 investments in which careful Bostonians took pleasure in putting 

 their money. Since then operations have not been continuous, 

 but the enterprise is still represented. After the war the glass 

 industry in Massachusetts dwindled sadly until, in 1880, there 

 were only five flint-glass houses and one window-glass factory in 

 operation in the entire State. The cause of this decline was largely 

 due to lack of fuel, and also in part to the pressure of other in- 

 dustries for which the locality is better adapted. 



Massachusetts must, however, always hold a prominent place 

 in the annals of American glass-making, both because of her 

 service in developing the plate-glass manufacture and the possi- 

 bilities of pressed glass, and still more because she has now within 

 her borders the most noted of American workshops for glass. The 

 lens-grinding establishment of Alvan Clark and Sons, at Cam- 

 bridgeport, is known wherever the science of astronomy is culti- 

 vated. Its achievements in producing the glass for the Russian 

 Imperial Observatory at Pulkowa and the giant lens for the Lick 

 Observatory in California are still in mind. The contributions 

 of the State must, therefore, be measured by intellectual standards 

 rather than by avoirdupois or dollars and cents. 



In other parts of New England the development of the industry 

 has been exceedingly moderate. New Hampshire seems to have 

 been an asylum for the disgruntled glass-makers of Massachusetts. 

 Since the times when Robert Hewes betook himself to Temple 

 and the Middlesex workers removed to Pembroke, the forests of 

 the State have been fatal allurements to those across the line. 

 Few, if any, of these northern migrations proved successful. The 

 works established at Keene, in 1814, for the manufacture of win- 

 dow glass continued in operation until the middle of the century, 

 but appear to have been a losing venture in the hands of the 

 several parties who attempted to run them. The bottle factory 

 established in the same town, in 1817, was somewhat more pros- 

 perous, but in 1848 succumbed to the same enemy which attends 

 all such industries, a lack of sufficient fuel. At the time of the 

 tenth census the bottle-house at South Lyndeborough was the only 

 glass factory in the State. 



The development of the industry in the other New England 

 States has been correspondingly meager. In recent times there 



