306 
Glasgow. charter in the year 1783, and owes its origin to Dr 
“Y" Patrick Colquhoun, author of the State of the Police of 
Population 
of the city 
and sub- 
urbs. 
* Glass, 
' by the 
Origin and 
i history. 
London, and other works, and at that time a merchant 
in Glasgow, and one of its most enlightened and public- 
‘spirited citizens. 
The chamber consists of the merchants and manufac- 
turers of Glasgow and, the neighbourhood, who may 
‘become members upon paying five guineas at admis- 
sion, and 10s. 6d. yearly. The management is vested 
‘in thirty directors, six of whom are renewed annually ; 
and their duty is to keep a watchful eye on whatever 
may be supposed to affect the commercial interests of 
‘Glasgow and its neighbourhood, and, at the same time, 
to serve as the organ of communication between the 
manufacturing and commercial body of the district, 
either acting generally or separately, and the legisla- 
‘ture or any of the departments of the state. 
In 1780, the number was 42,832 In1791, 
In 1785, 
. . 66,578 
45,889 In 1801, .. 83,769 
Census of 1811. 
North parish . . . 11,159 South-west .... 8193 
North-west. ... 9940 St Andrew’s ... 5250 
West oie ey 6 4190 St Enoch’s .. 7715 
GL 
Gises is the name of an artificial substance, formed 
igneous fusion of siliceous earth with various 
salts and metallic oxides, and possessing a high degree 
of transparency, equalled only by the more perfect crys- 
tals of the mineral kingdom, and other physical pro- 
perties, which render it one of the most useful and or- 
‘namental substances which the arts have received from 
the ingenuity of man. 
The word glass is of uncertain etymology. It has 
been, derived by some from the word g/essum, the name 
which the ancient Gauls and Germans gave to amber, 
and from which has arisen the German word oleisser, 
to shine,” and the English word glisten ; while others 
have traced it to the word glastum, the Latin term for 
woad, either because the ashes of this plant were used 
in the manufacture of glass, or because glass had com- 
monly that blue tinge which the Britons communica- 
ted to their bodies by the use of the woad. Its deriva- 
tion from the Latin word glacies, signifying ice, is not 
less probable than those which we have mentioned. 
It would be a task as irksome to ourselves, as it 
would be unprofitable to our readers, to detail the un- 
‘founded apegnisncns which have been accumulated re- 
specting the origin of this remarkable substance. 
There is some reason to believe that glass was made 
by the Phenicians, the Tyrians, and the Egyptians. 
Paw and other antiquarians maintain, that the first 
glasshouse was constructed at Diospolis, the ancient ca- 
pital of the Thebais; but it appears from the writings 
of the ancients, that the Phenicians had made considera- 
‘ble progress in the manufacture of glass; and Plin 
informs us that the Phenician colony of Sidon cbtained. 
for some hundred years, the chief ingredients of their 
glass from the Phenician town Acco, now St John 
"Acre, near the place where the small river Belus’ 
throws itself into the Mediterranean. 
The account of the origin of glass, which Pliny has 
handed down to us, is extremely plausible. A merchant 
vessel laden with nitre or fossil alkali, having been driven 
* « Fama est, adpulsa nave mercatorum nitri, cum sparsi per littus epulas pararent, nec esset cortinis attollendis Japidum occasio, 
glebas nitri e nave subdidisse. Quibus accensis permixta arena littoris, translucentes novi liquoris fluxisse rivos, et hane fuisse origi- 
‘nem vitri.” Plin. lib. xxxviscap. 65. 
GLASGOW. . 
' 
ASS. 
By what processes these coloured glasses were formed, 
6159 -Govan'.)..4.). +9 8081 
5758 Barony or Landward ~ 
5799 parish . 
Total population . . . 110,460. rob 
In 1815, the number of families in the 24 police 
wards, who paid taxes on rents under £5 per annum, 
re 
was |.) .0¢-srestiteakwd deed Dee. Boe «7455 
Do. on rents of £5 and upwards. ... 5272 
Number of families in the 24 wards . . 12,727 
On the principle of there being an average of five souls 
in each family, the number of inhabitants in the 24 
wards of the royalty would be 63,635 ; being an in- 
crease of 5271 during the period of four years. If to 
this number the population of the Gorbals, Govan, 
Barony be added, as taken in 1811, the amount will be 
115,731 ; and if we suppose the increase of these sub- 
urbs for four years to be 426y, the grand total in 1815 
will be 120,000. 3 : 
In 1814, there were interred in the burying-grounds y, 
within the royalty, and in the immediate suburbs, $254 
In'the year 1813, "0.0 se , 2704 
Increase of burials in 1814 
ashore on the coast of Palestine, near the river Belus, 
the crew went in search of provisions, and accidentally 
supported the kettles on which they dressed them 
upon pieces of fossil alkali. .The river sand, above 
which this operation was performed, was vitrified by 
its union with the alkali, and thus produced glass.. The 
important hint which was thus accidentally obtained, 
was soon adopted, and the art of making glass was gra- 
dually improved. * ; 
In the time of Pliny, glass was manufactured out of - 
the fine sand which was collected at the mouth of the 
river Vulturnus. | After being ground to powder, it 
was mixed with three parts of nitrous fossil alkali, or 
soda, and after fusion it was taken to another furnace, 
where it was formed into a mass called ammonitrum, 
and converted into a pure glass, A similar method of 
making glass was used in Spain and Gaul. 
Pliny informs us, that in the reign of Tiberius an 
artist had his house demolished for makmg glass mal- 
leable, while Petronius Arbiter asserts that he was be- 
headed by the emperor. About the commencement of 
the Christian era, drinking vessels were comraonly 
made of glass, and glass bottles for holding wine and 
flowers were in common use. The company at Ro 
which was engaged in the manufacture of glass, a 
particular street assigned to them near- the Porta Ca- 
pena. Alexander Severus imposed a tax upon this 
company in A. D, 220, which was continued in the 
time of Aurelian. ee ah 
The art of making coloured glass seems to have been 
coeval with the invention of glass itself. Many of the 
Egyptian mummies, one of which is in the British Mu- 
seum, are ornamented with beads of various] coloured 
glass, which could not have been executed without a ches 
mical knowledge of the properties of the metallic oxides. 
it is not easy to discover, as the ancients were not ac- 
quainted with the mineral acids which are now usually 
employed in the preparation of metallic oxides. Strabo — 
phen "| 
wa. 98,216 
