The Story of Glass

by Sara Ware Bassett

HE voyage from Liverpool to Boston was thoroughly interesting to Giusippe. In the first place there was the wonder of the great blue sea—a sea so vast that the Italian boy, who had never before ventured beyond the canals of the Adriatic, was bewildered when day after day the giant ship plowed onward and still, despite her speed, failed to reach the land. Sunlight flooded the water, twilight settled into darkness, and yet on every hand tossed that mighty expanse of waves. Would a haven ever be reached, the lad asked himself; and how, amid that pathless ocean, could the captain be so sure that eventually he would make the port for which he was aiming? It was all wonderful.

Fortunately the crossing was a smooth one, and accordingly every moment of the voyage was a delight. What happy days our travelers passed together! Miss Cartright was the jolliest of companions. She dressed dolls for Jean—dressed them in such gowns as never were seen, dainty French little frocks which converted the plainest china creature into a wee Parisian; she read aloud; she told stories; she played games. Hannah surrendered unconditionally when, one morning after they had been comparing notes on housekeeping, the fact leaked out that Miss Cartright's mother had been a New Englander. That was enough!

"She has had the proper sort of bringing up," remarked Hannah, with a sigh of satisfaction. "She knows exactly how to pack away blankets and how to clean house as it should be done. She is a very unusual young woman!"

Coming from Hannah such praise was phenomenal.

Mr. Cabot seemed to think, too, that Miss Cartright possessed many virtues.

At any rate he enjoyed talking with her, and every evening when the full moon touched with iridescent beauty the wide, pulsing sea he would tuck the girl into her steamer chair and the two would stay up on deck until the clear golden ball of light had climbed high into the heaven.

So passed the voyage.

Then as America came nearer Giusippe witnessed all the strange sights that heralded the approach to the new continent; he saw the lights dotting the coast; he watched steamers which were outward bound for the old world he had left behind; he strained his eyes to catch, through a telescope, the murky outlines of the land.

"Here is still another use to which glass is put, Giusippe," said Mr. Cabot indicating with a gesture the red flash-light of a beacon far against the horizon. "Without the powerful reflectors, lenses, and prisms which are in use in our lighthouses many a vessel would be wrecked. For not only must a lighthouse have a strong light; it must also have a means of throwing that light out, and thereby increasing its effectiveness. Scientists have discovered just how to arrange prisms, lenses, and reflectors so the light will travel to the farthest possible distance. At Navasink, on the highlands south of New York harbor, stands the most powerful coast light in the United States. It equals about sixty million candle-power, and its beam can be seen seventy nautical miles away. The carrying of the light to such a tremendous distance is due to the strong reflectors employed in conjunction with the light itself. The largest lens, however, under control of the United States is on the headlands of the Hawaiian Islands. This is eight and three-quarters feet in diameter and is made from the most carefully polished glass. And by the way, among other uses that science makes of glass are telescopes, microscopes, and field-glasses, which are all constructed from flawlessly ground lenses. Often it takes a whole year, and sometimes even longer, to polish a large telescope lens. Without this magnifying agency we should have no astronomy, and fewer scientific discoveries than we now have. The glasses people wear all have to be ground and polished in much the same fashion; opera glasses, magic lanterns, and every contrivance for bringing distant objects nearer or making them larger are dependent for their power upon glass lenses."

"Even when making glass I never dreamed it could be used for so many different purposes," answered Giusippe.