A PRACTICAL JOURNAL OF 
HOME ARTS. 
Vol. IV. NEW YOKK, AUGUST, 1881. No. C 
(a common poker answers very well) 
should be somewhat pointed, and the line 
along which the cut is to be made should 
be marked b^^ chalk or by pasting a thin 
strip of paper alongside of it ; then make 
a file mark to commence the cut ; apply 
the hot iron and a crack will start; and 
this crack will follow the iron wherever 
we choose to lead it. In this way jars are 
easily made out of old bottles, and broken 
vessels of different kinds may be cut up 
into new forms. Flat glass may also be 
cut into the most intricate and elegant 
forms. 
Sometimes it is not convenient to use a 
red-hot iron, and some persons fail in its 
use. In such cases carbon pencils or 
pastils may be used. They are made ac- 
cording to different recipes, of which we 
give three : 
1. Dissolve 100 parts of gum arable in 240 
parts of water, and mix the solution with 
a paste prepared by triturating 40 parts 
of powdered tragacanth with 640 parts 
of hot water. Then, having dissolved 20 
parts of storax and 20 parts of benzoin in 
90 parts of alcohol (0'830), strain the latter 
solution and add it to the mixed mucilage. 
Finally mix the whole intimately with 240 
to 280 parts of powdered charcoal, so as to 
Cutting Glass With a Hot Iron. 
EETAIN tramps, 
who are ' ' hard up, ' ' 
periodically travel 
through the coun- 
try, selling, as a 
great secret, direc- 
tions for the old 
process of cutting 
glass with a red-hot 
h^on. The method 
is very simple, and 
to those who have failed with the recipes 
usually published (strings wet with tur- 
pentine and set on fire; friction with 
strings, etc.) the results are rather sur- 
prising. We have never found any dif- 
ficulty in cutting off broken flasks so as 
to make dishes, or to carry a cut spirally 
round a long bottle so*as to cut it into the 
form of a corkscrew. And, by the way, 
when so cut, glass exhibits considerable 
elasticity, and the spiral may be elongated 
like a ringlet. The process, as we have 
just said, is very simple. The iron rod 
