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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



to encourage the project, exempted the company and all its work- 

 men from taxation for a period of five years. The proprietors 

 incorporated as the "Hamilton Manufacturing Company" main- 

 tained two glasshouses, three furnaces and produced an average 

 of 20,000 feet of window glass a month besides bottles. It was a 

 highly successful enterprise ard during the period of its greatest 

 activity from 1796 to 1810, the most productive glass works of the 

 country. The works were located in a heavily wooded region 

 but the fuel supply gradually became exhausted and in 18 15 

 the operations were finally suspended for want of wood. 



As late as 1854, Joel Munsell writing of the village of Hamilton, 

 no longer to be found on the map, exclaims: "Dost thou remem- 

 ber the late Gen. [Alexander] Hamilton and the Albany aristocracy 

 of which he used to be in the days of his glory and renown the 

 sun of a little world ? It was he who planned our village and the 

 glassworks and gave them being while yet we imported all our 

 ideas of manufactures as we did our glass." 



Few of the products of this factory are to be seen today. The 

 accompanying cuts illustrate one of the liquor flasks in the Museum 

 collections bearing the name of the company on one side and on 

 the other the head of either Washington or Hamilton. 



Mineralogy 



In this division work has progressed along the following lines 

 Investigation. The equipment of the mineralogic laboratory 

 with a Fuess goniometer no. IVa for crystal measurement has 

 greatly facilitated the measurement and description of new mineral 

 occurrences. This work which has been pushed forward mainly in 



