GLASS AND GLASS-MAKING 



known method of generating electricity in any quantity 

 was by means of rubbed glass; and when this elec- 

 tricity had been generated, glass was the substance 

 that made possible its isolation and distribution. 

 There would be no Edison incandescent light to-day; 

 no wonderful Hewitt mercury-vapor light, and no 

 X-ray, but for glass. 



These are only a few of the more important develop- 

 ments that glass has made possible; and all things 

 considered, then, it is little wonder that glass has been 

 looked upon as a gift of the fairies. 



But if fairies are responsible for the secret of glass- 

 making, to whom was this secret first imparted? 



Pliny says that some Phoenician merchants were the 

 favored ones. According to his story a band of these 

 merchants having landed on the sandy bank of the 

 river Belus, in Palestine, to prepare a meal, and being 

 unable to secure stones for supporting their cook- 

 ing-pots, used blocks of niter taken from the cargo 

 of their boats. The heat of the fire caused a fusing of 

 the niter and the sand, which resulted in the produc- 

 tion of glass. 



Josephus credits the Children of Israel with the 

 discovery of glass in a more spectacular, if quite as 

 accidental, manner. Some Israelites, he says , once set 

 fire to a thick forest that happened to be situated on a 

 hillside of sand heavily charged with niter. The in- 

 tense heat of the burning forest caused the niter and 

 sand to fuse and run down in streams of molten glass, 

 which hardened in pools at the foot of the hill. Ob- 

 serving this wonderful phenomenon the Israelites set 



[279] 



