A transparent, solid, brittle, factitious body, produced by fusing sand with an alkali. The essential ingredients of glass are silex and potash, or soda; a few other substances are sometimes added. Silex is found nearly pure in rock crystal, flint, and other varieties of quartz; for the manufacture of the better kinds of glass in this country, it is generally obtained from sand, especially the white sand of New Jersey.
Factitious, made by art, not found in a state of nature.
The saline matter obtained from the ashes of wood, by causing water to pass through them; the water imbibes the salt, which is then obtained from it by evaporation. When purified by calcination, it is termed pearlash. In countries where there are vast forests, as in America and Russia, it is manufactured on a very large scale.
What can you say of the origin of Glass?
The period of its invention is quite unknown. Pliny relates that some merchants, driven by a storm to the coast of Phenicia, near the river Belus, made a large fire on the sand to dress some food, using as fuel some of the plant Kali, which grew there in great abundance; an imperfect glass was thus formed by the melting of the sand and ashes together. This production was picked up by a Syrian merchant, who, attracted by its great beauty, examined the cause of its origin, and, after many attempts, succeeded in its manufacture.
Who was Pliny?
A celebrated Roman naturalist and historian.
At what place was Glass first made?