"Do you really make glass by melting up that stuff?" asked Jean incredulously.
The man smiled.
"But isn't it all red?"
"The red comes out in the melting. We have to be very careful, however, in weighing out the ingredients, for much of our success depends on the accurate proportions of the materials combined in the batch. Of course the chemical composition differs some for different sorts of glass. It all depends on what kind of glass is to be made. Then too the conditions of the furnaces vary at times, the draughts being better at some seasons than at others. We take a test or proof of every fresh melt, and you would be surprised to see how little these differ. Careful mixing of the raw materials is the first important item of successful glass-making; the second is the fusion by heat of the materials."
"The batch is next melted, Jean," explained Giusippe, as they followed Mr. Wyman into the great brick-paved room where the furnaces were.
Here indeed was a picturesque scene. Numberless men were hurrying hither and thither, some whirling in the air glowing masses of molten glass; others standing before the furnace doors gathering balls of it on the end of long iron blow-pipes which were from six to nine feet in length. Everybody was scurrying. As soon as a ball of red-hot glass had been collected on the end of a blow-pipe it was rushed off to the blower before it cooled. In and out of the throng of moving workmen young boys, or carriers, swung along bearing to the annealing ovens on charred wooden trays or forks newly completed vases or pitchers.
Jean glanced about, fascinated by the bustling crowd.
"Here are the furnaces," the foreman said. "Each one has twelve openings and is built with a low dome to keep in the heat. The flues or chimneys are in the sides of the furnace. Within, and just beneath the openings or working-holes, stand the great clay pots of molten batch. These pots are made for us from New Jersey clay; formerly we used to make them ourselves, but it was a great deal of trouble, and we now find it simpler to buy them. They vary in cost from thirty to seventy-five dollars, according to their size."
"And they are liable to break the first time they are used," whispered Giusippe in a jesting undertone.
Mr. Wyman caught his words.