GLASS-MAKING. 607 



gatherer throws the fold of glass into a spiral form, and so works 

 it to the end of the mass. This leaves a perfectly clear and semi- 

 plastic ball. The pipe is now withdrawn from the furnace and 

 taken to an open wooden mold, or trough, where the glass is 

 formed into a pear-shaped mass. The mold is kept constantly 

 wet, to prevent its burning. The water, in contact with the red- 

 hot glass, assumes the spheroidal condition, and looks like so 

 many globules of mercury. The gatherer's duty is now at an 

 end, and he returns to the melting furnace to repeat the opera- 

 tions of gathering until the crucibles are emptied of their con- 

 tents. The blow-pipe and its red-hot burden, meanwhile, have 

 been taken in charge by the blower. 



AtTACIUNU the '■ PONTT.' 



On the continent of Europe the same furnace is generally 

 used for both melting and blowing, but in England and America 

 it has been found more advantageous to employ separate furnaces. 

 They are very similar in construction. The blowing furnaces 

 have, however, somewhat larger side-openings, and the gas, in- 

 stead of being introduced at the ends, is burned directly under 

 the openings, or blow-holes. The furnace simply provides an in- 

 tensely hot chamber for controlling the temperature of the glass 

 under manipulation. On each side of the furnace, and directly in 

 front of the blow-holes, there is a wide platform built over a cel- 

 lar, or pit, perhaps ten feet deep. Long openings in this platform 

 run at right angles to the furnace, and permit the blower, when 

 occasion demands, to swing his pipe and its burden in the pit 

 beneath. 



The sheet-glass factories of Pittsburgh are equipped as thor- 

 oughly as any in the world. The division of labor is everywhere 

 carried to the extreme. Each man 

 knows how to do a particular thing, 

 and does it. The blower, for instance, ' " 

 into whose hands the red-hot ball of 



T T . , T . , . Forming the "Nose." 



glass has just been consigned, is sup- 

 posed to know little or nothing about the other operations involved 

 in glass-making. He begins at a certain point, and leaves off at a 

 certain point. The skill with which he effects his part in the many 

 transformations required in the genesis of a pane of glass is, how- 

 ever, the most attractive in a process nowhere devoid of interest. 



His first act is to grasp the pipe, and, with the ball of glass 

 still resting in the wooden mold, blow through the mouth-piece 



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