Published by Bumpus & Griffin London, 1831.
Pl. 4.
Published by Bumpus & Griffin London, 1831.]
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
The scientific instruments prepared by the glass-blower are numerous and highly useful: barometers, thermometers, syphons, and many other vessels constructed of tubes, are indispensable to the student of physics or chemistry. Some of these instruments are high in price, and liable to frequent destruction; and those by whom they are much employed are subject to considerable expense in procuring or replacing them. It is therefore advisable that he who desires to occupy himself in the pursuit of experimental science, should know how to prepare such instruments himself; that, in short, he should become his own glass-blower. “The attainment of a ready practice in the blowing and bending of glass,” says Mr. Faraday, “is one of those experimental acquirements which render the chemist most independent of large towns and of instrument-makers.”
Unquestionably the best method of learning to work glass is to obtain personal instructions from one who is conversant with the art: but such instructions are not easily obtained. The best operators are not always the best teachers; and to find a person equally qualified and willing to teach the art, is a matter of considerable difficulty. In large towns, workmen are too much engaged with their ordinary business to step aside for such a purpose; and in small towns glass-blowers are seldom to be found. In most cases, also, they are too jealous of their supposed secrets to be willing to communicate their methods of operating to strangers, even when paid to do so.