88 GLASS. 



HENRIETTA. 



Then how very cold it must be there. 



MRS. c. 



Yes; Yakutsk is the coldest part of Siberia the ther- 

 mometer sometimes stands there at 44 below the zero of 

 Reaumur's thermometer. 



MRS. F. 



Which, by our recent mode of calculation, is equal to 67 

 below the freezing point of Fahrenheit. 



MRS. c. 



The accounts of the value of glass among the ancients is 

 very contradictory. That it was in frequent use, we see from 

 the number of glass cups, plates, bottles, &c., which have 

 been found in Pompeii, some of blue, green, and yellow glass; 

 and also from the paintings of fruit, eggs, &c., in glass ves- 

 sels, which adorned the walls of the rooms. That their 

 windows also were glazed, appears from the leaden or brass 

 divisions to the window frames in some of the houses, and in 

 one, a pane of glass yet remains. When windows of glass 

 became common, it is difficult to say. A writer accuses an 

 individual of luxury in having glass windows in the time of 

 Aurelian; and yet Caligula, when giving audience to Philo, 

 a rich Jew of Alexandria, is stated to have attended to no- 

 thing but to the new glazing of his windows, so that the 

 imperial palace must have been glazed long before, to have 

 required renewing.* 



ESTHER. 



Did not the ancients know how to render glass malleable 1 ? 



MRS. c. 



So we are told; and Tiberius is said to have beheaded its 

 inventor. An Arabian writer speaks of the malleability of 

 glass as known to the Egyptians who were certainly well 

 acquainted with the manufacture of glass, as the objects dis- 



' * Sir William Cell. 



