Augusri92": }     Glass  for  Manufacture  of  Ampuls.  581 
and  that  no  method  of  phonetic  spelHng  could  ever  be  successfully 
standardized.  Perhaps  many  of  the  sticklers  for  the  older  form  may 
have  admitted  that  there  were  many  words,  some  of  them  in  quite 
common  use,  which  they  knew  "by  sight"  only,  and  with  which  they 
had  no  "speaking  acquaintance,"  but  they  evinced  no  inordinate  de- 
sire to  be  compelled  to  form  unnumbered  new  acquaintances,  as  it 
were,  the  presentations  to  be  made  by  writers  who  claimed  the  privi- 
lege of  disguising  and  camouflaging  the  English  language  to  suit 
their  own  whims. 
There  is,  of  course,  a  trend  toward  what  all  admit  to  be,  or  claim 
to  be,  a  "modern"  form  of  spelling.  Even  a  cursory  examination 
of  the  accepted  forms  in  use  to-day  would  be  convincing  of  the  ac- 
curacy of  this  statement.  But  it  might  be  quite  difficult  to  bring 
convincing  argument  that  the  changes  involved  had  ever  been  arbi- 
trarily made.  Tennyson  and  Swinburne  employed,  in  the  spelling 
of  many  words,  forms  quite  different  from  those  followed  by  Shakes- 
peare and  Bacon,  and,  no  doubt  to  those  earlier  writers  the  forms 
employed  by  Wyclif  appeared  antiquated,  if  not  grotesque.  The 
change  from  one  form  to  another  has  been  gradual  and  almost  un- 
noticed, as  are  the  changes  to  which  all  become  accustomed  in  dress, 
and  even  in  so-called  correct  forms  of  etiquette.  There  is  evidently 
no  need  to  tell  a  people  that  its  language  is  indefensible  etymolog- 
ically  as  well  as  on  grounds  of  accepted  usage.  But  it  has  been  proved 
apparently,  that  its  merit  of  familiarity  is  its  sufficient  defense. 
THE  SELECTION  OF  GLASS  FOR  THE  MANUFACTURE 
OF  AMPULS.* 
By  George  E.  E)we, 
chief  chemist,  h.  k.  muivford  company,  phiivadelphia. 
The  selection  of  and  requirements  for  glass  bottles  for  storing 
the  ordinary  elixirs,  fluidextracts,  powders,  tablets,  etc.,  employed 
in  pharmacy  is  a  crude  process,  indeed,  in  comparison  with  the 
careful  tests  required  for  the  selection  of  a  proper  glass  for  the 
manufacture  of  ampuls.  This  care  is  necessitated  by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  unselected  glass  may  possess  sufficient  free  alkali,  or  may 
be  capable  of  yielding  sufficient  free  alkali  under  the  stress  of  the 
*  From  Jour.  Franklin  Institute,  May,  1920. 
