Glass Manufacturing:

See also Ceramics.

The blue tint of the common poison bottle is got by the addition of black oxide of cobalt to the molten glass; the green tint of the actinic glass bottle is obtained in the same way by the addition of potassium bichromate, which is reduced to the basylous condition, and the amber tint is produced by the addition of impure manganese dioxide, a superior tint being produced by suphur in one form or another. The formulas for various kinds of bottle glass, which indicate the general composition of almost all glasses, are:

White Glass for Ordinary Molded Bottles.—

Sand64 parts by weight
Lime 6 parts by weight
Carbonate of sodium23 parts by weight
Nitrate of sodium 5 parts by weight

White Flint Glass Containing Lead.—

Sand63 parts by weight
Lime 5 parts by weight
Carbonate of sodium21 parts by weight
Nitrate of sodium 3 parts by weight
Red lead 8 parts by weight

Ordinary Green Glass for Dispensing Bottles.—

Sand63 parts by weight
Carbonate of sodium26 parts by weight
Lime11 parts by weight

A mixture for producing a good green flint glass is much the same as that for the ordinary white flint glass, except that the lime, instead of being the purest, is ordinary slaked lime, and the sodium nitrate is omitted. Sand, lime, and sodium carbonate are the ordinary bases of glass, while the sodium nitrate is the decolorizing agent.