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CLASS XXIV.
REPO IIT ON GLASS.
[The figures after the Names (between parentheses) refer to the Exhibitors’ Numbers and to the Pages in theOfficial Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue.]
J unj.
Lord De Maclev, F.R.S., Chairman and Reporter , 21 St. James's Place.
EL 11. Baldock, M.P., Deputy Clutirman , 5 Hyde Park Place.
R. L. Chance, Glass Works, Birmingham ; Glass Manufacturer.
L. C. Duncan, United States ; Barrister.
♦Jules Fhison, Belgium ; Glass Manufacturer. Member of Chamber of Commerce at Charleroix.Robert Obbaiid, 2 Crescent. Blac-kfriars; Merchant.
Eugene Peligot , France ; Professor at Museum of Arts and Sciences ; Member of the Central Jury.Dr. Sciiueler, Zollverein ; Mining Councillor.
Associates .
Geo. Bontemps, at Messrs. Chance and Co.’s, Birmingham ; Glass Manufacturer.
Sir David Brewster , Principal of the University, St. Andrews. Juror in Class X.
Joseph Ciiater, 24 St. Dunstan’s Ilill, Tower Street; "Window Glass Dealer.
Alfred B. Daniell, 18 Wigmore Street; Flint Glass Dealer.
Vi. Moutlock, 18 Regent Street; E’lint Glass Dealer.
Philip Palmer, 118 St. Martin’s Lane; Window Glass Dealer.
James Powell, 16 Temple Street, "Whitefriars; Flint Glass Manufacturer.
Andrew Boss, 2 Featherstone Buildings, Ilolborn ; Optician .
"W.m. Swinburne, 93 Upper Thames Street; Plate and Crown Glass Manufacturer.
(’has. "Winston, 3 liarcourt Buildings, Temple ; Barrister.
Thomas Wood, 19 Greek Street, Soho ; Plate Glass Silverer.
Ernest Zuccaxi, Brick Lane, Spitalfields; Looking Glass Manufacturer.
* Professor Jules Ciiandelon, Proxy for 31. Frisen.
The limits to which the Reports of the Juries mustnecessarily be confined will admit of a very brief andcursory sketch only of the rise and progress of this ma-nufacture.
Its origin is uncertain, and has been ascribed by someof the writers of antiquity to accident. Josephus claimsthe discovery for the Israelites ; Pliny assigns it to thePhoenicians , and states that the first glass-houses -wereerected in Tyre, where the only staple of the manufac-ture existed for many ages. Herodotus and Theophrastus likewise confirm the fact of the use of glass having beenknown in the earliest periods of civilization, and of theestablishment of works for its fabrication in Egypt andPhoenicia , and even in India , where rock crystal was em-ployed in its composition. It is mentioned in the book of Job , “ Hast thou with him spread out the sky, whichis strong, and as a molten looking-glass?” But possiblythis expression may have been intended, in the originalHebrew , to refer to the metallic speculum.
The Egyptian philosophers had made chemistry theirstudy, and attained to a very high degree of proficiencyin that science. They involved it in the same mysteryas they did their religious rites, and claimed for it fromthe people the same respect as for an institution of divineorigin; and it is not surprising that they should havediscovered in the prosecution of their researches, thesimple process of vitrification, resulting from the actionof intense heat upon siliceous particles, combined withalkaline salts; and that they should at once have per-ceived the facility of -working the malleable substancethus produced, which possessed the quality of becominghard and transparent as it gradually cooled.
This fact once established, their artistic skill, with theaid of science, could not fail of advancing another step,and of availing itself of the means of conveying form andcolour to the shape, and of dealing with it for purposesof ornament and utility; as we see exhibited in the fewbeautiful remnants which have been brought to light inthe excavations of modern times.
' curious and interesting chapter of his “ Natural History, ”(lib. 36, cap. 25,) appears to have been very much thesame as that practised at the present time; and Sir, Gardner Wilkinson (vol. iii., page 89), gives the repre-' sentation of two glass-blowers inflating a piece of molten: metal, by means of hollow tubes; taking from a paintingof Beni Hossan, executed during the reign of that mo-narch, who lived about 3,500 years ago, and adds, “That
• glass vases, if we maj* trust to the representations in the; Theban paintings, are frequently shown to have been' used for holding wine, as early as the Exodus, about
: 1,490 years before the Christian era.” The remains ofAlexander the Great are said by Suetonius and Strabo tohave been delivered to Augustus , when he was in Egypt ,
. in a glass case, in which Seleucus had deposited themafter removing them from a golden urn.
; This substance is supposed to have been used byi Archimedes for scientific purposes, and an orb of glass is1 mentioned, as having been constructed by him, which; gave rise to the epigram put into the mouth of Jupiter by; Claudian—
1 Jupiter in parvo cum cernerct sethera vitro,
• Risi*, et ad superos talia dicta dedit.
; Huccinc mortalis progressa potentia curoe ;
I Jam meus in fragili luditur orbe labor!
i Jura poli, rerumque fidem, legesque virorum,
! Ecce Syracusius transtulit arte Senex !
! There is in the British Museum a perfect and beautiful■ goblet, excavated by Captain Layard from among the, ruins of Nineveh . It has a name (probably that of the; contemporary sovereign, or of the maker) engraved uponit; and from the characters employed, and the locality inwhich it was found, it is believed to be of a date not less: recent than seven centuries before the Christian era, and: is probably the most ancient piece of manufactured glassin existence. The Barherim, commonly known as thePortland Vase , likewise in the British Museum , andbroken a few years ago by a fool, or a madman, shows[ the perfection to which the art was carried at a somewhatlater period.