G L A 
the magnificence of its public buildings, the celebrity 
of its univerfity, and the high and deferved fame whicli 
it has acquired by its commerce and nianufadftires, is 
become an emporium of confiderable importance ; a 
nurfery for the arts of great utility and interert:; and a 
feat of learning which has done honour to mofi: branches 
of literature. Glafgow is fuuated thirty-eight miles 
weft of Edinburgh, and forty-three fouth-weft of Perth. 
Lat. 55. 53. N. Ion. 4. ij. W. Greenwich. 
GLAS'GOW, a county of the American States, in 
Newburn diftridt. North Carolina. It is bounded north 
by Edgeomb, fouth by Lenoir, eafl by Pitt, and weft 
by Wayne. 
GLAS'HUTTEN, or Glasitten, a town of Hun¬ 
gary ; celebrated for its hot baths, and near it are feme 
rich gold mines; feven miles from Schemnitz. 
GLAS'LOUGH, a- town of Ireland, in the county of 
Monaghan: five miles north-north-eaft of Monaghan. 
GLASS,y*. Sax. glas, Dut. as Pezon imagines 
from glds, Brit, green, hn Erfe it is called kldnn, and 
this primarily fignifies-clean or clear, fo denominated 
from its tranfparency. ] An artificial fubftance made by 
fufing fixed falts and flint or fand together.—The word 
cometh from the Belgic and High Dutch : glafs, 
from the Ytxh glanjln, wliich fignifies amongft thetn to 
fliine; or perhaps from in the Latin, which is ice, 
whofe colour it refembles. Peacham.—Glafs is thought 
fo compact and firm a'body, tliat it is indeftructible by 
art or nature ; and is alfo of fo clofe a texture, that the 
fubtlefl chemical fpirits cannot pervade it. Boyle. 
ShowTs of grenadoes rain, by fudden burfl 
Difploding murd’rous bowels, fragments of fteel 
And flones, and glafs, and nitrous grain adult. Philips. 
A glafs veffel of any. kind : 
I’ll fee no more ; 
And yet the eighth appears,-who bears a glafs 
Which fhews me many more. Shakfpeare. 
A looking-glafs ; a mirror : 
He fpreads hfs fubtile nets'from fight. 
With tinkling to betray 
The larks that in the mefhes light. Dryden. 
An hour-glafs; a g-lafs ufed in meafuring time by the 
flux of fand : 
Were my wife’s liver 
Infefted as her life, file would not live 
The running of one glafs, SkakeJpeAre. 
The deflined time of man’s life : 
No more his royal felf did live, no more his noble fonne, 
The golden Meleager now, their all were run. 
Chapman. 
A cup-of glafs ufed to drink in : 
When thy heart 
Dilates with fervent 'joys, and eager foul 
Prompts to purfue the fparkling be fure 
’Tis time to fhun it. Philips, 
The quantity of wine ufually contained in a glafs; a 
draught..—While a man thinks one glafs more will not 
make him drunk, that one glafs hath difabled' him from 
well difeerning his prefeiu condition. Taylor. —The firft 
glafs may pafs for health, the fecond for good-humour, 
ihe third for our friends; byt the fourth is for our ene¬ 
mies. ZeiK/i/e.—A perfpedlive glafs ; 
The moon whofe orb 
Through optic glafs the Tufean artifl views. Milton. 
When, or by whom, tlie art of making glafs was firft 
found out, is uncertain. Neri, an ingenious writer on 
the manufabture of glafs, traces the antiquity of this, 
art as far back as the. time of Job : but Dr. Merret en¬ 
deavours to prove that it is as ancient as either pottery 
or the making of bricks; becaufe a kiia of bricks can- 
G L A 60 !) 
not be burnt, nor a batch of pottery made, but fome of 
the bricks and the ’.vare will be fuperficially turned to 
glafs; fo that it muft have been known at the building 
of Babel, and as long before as the making of bricks was 
in life. It muft liave been known confequently among.ft 
the Egyptians, when the Ifraelites were employed by 
them in making bricks. The Egyptians indeed boaft, 
that this art was taught them by-the great Hermes. 
Ariftophanes, Ariftotle, Alexander Aphrodifieus, Lu¬ 
cretius, and John the Divine, put us out of all doubt 
that glafs was ufed in their days. 
It appears, that before the conqueft of Britain by the 
Romans, glafs-lioufes had been erebted in tliis ifiand, as 
well as in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. Hence, in many parts 
of the country are to be found amulets of glafs, having 
a narrow perforation and thick rim, denominated by tlte 
remaining Britons g/cAca naidreedh, ox glafs adders, which 
were probably in former times ufed as amulets by the 
druids. According to venerable Bede, artificers Ikilled 
in making glafs for windows, were brought into Eng¬ 
land in the year 674, by abbot Benedict, vyho v/ere em¬ 
ployed in glazing the chttrcli and monaftery of Werc- 
moLith. According to others, they were firft brought 
over by Wilfrid bilhop of Worceller. Till this time 
tlie art of making fuch glafs was unknown in Britain ; 
though glafs windows did not begin to be common be¬ 
fore the year 1180 : and even then they were uncommon 
in private houfes, and confidered as a kind of luxury,, 
or as marks of great magnificence. Italy had them firft, 
France next, from whence they came to England. Yet 
Venice, for many years, excelled all Europe in the lu- 
periority of its glafs ; and, in the thirteenth century, 
the Venetians were the only people that had the fecret 
of making cryftal looking-glalfes. Their great glals- 
works were at Muran, or Murano, a village near the 
city, which furniftied all Europe with the fineft and 
largeft glafles. 
The manufabture of glafs was firft begun in England 
in 1357 : the finer fort was made in the place called 
Crutched-friars, in London; the fine flint glafs, but in¬ 
ferior to that of Venice, was firft made in the Savoy- 
houfe, in tlie Strand, London. This manufabhire ap¬ 
pears to have been much improved in 1635, when it was 
carried on with fea-coal inftead of wood, and a mono¬ 
poly was granted to fir Robert Manfell, who was allowed- 
to imporAiie fine Venetian flint glalfes for drinking, the 
art of making' which was not brought to pertebtion iw 
England before the reign of Vvilliain III. But tlie firft 
glafs plates for looking-glaffes and coacli-windows were 
made by us in 1673, at Lambeth, through the encourage¬ 
ment of the duke of Buckingham; who, in 1670, intro- 
duced the manufabture of fine flint glafs into England, 
by means of Venetian artifts, with amazing fuccefs. And 
an extenfive manufabtory of tliis elegant brancii ol com-- 
merce was alio eftablilhed in Lancaftiire,. about tiie year 
1773, through the fpirited exertions of a very rclpebb- 
able body of proprietors, who were incorporated by aa 
abt of parliament. From this period we are to date the 
great improvement which has taken place in tlie beauty 
and tranfparency of the pure cryftal glafs in England, 
whicli is inferior to none in the univerle. 
Moft of the glalles made for common ufe, con lft of 
an earthy fubftance, called tlie hajis ; and a faline or me¬ 
tallic fubftance, called the/ax. The bafts is ulually 
filiceous earth, the l-alt an alkali, and the metal lead. 
But various admixtures ot earth and metallic calces are 
ufed in the abbual prabrice of the art. None ot the acids, 
except the pholphoric, are lufficicntly fixed to with- 
ftand the heat required to form the vitreous combination 
with an earth ; and this fait has not yet been aftbrded 
cheap enough to.be ufed, except in Imall allays by the 
blow-pipe. The fluxes in glafs-nuiking are ufeful, not 
only becaufe more fufiblc than the earthy matter, to 
which they communicate the lame property, but hkewile 
as lolvents 'which combine ■with it in the dry way, and 
ia 
