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Phoenician keels clove the waters of the Mediterranean. On the walls of the Beni Hassan tombs the figures of glass-blowers with blowpipes, marvers, crucible, and furnace, still show as freshly as when placed there by the artists of Osirtasen I., some 3500 years before the Christian era, and amongst countless other relics, such as vases, bottles, cups, and bugles found in the valley of the Nile, a necklace bead discovered at Thebes bears the name of Queen Ramake, wife of Thothmes II. who reigned about the date of the Jewish Exodus. In the sacred colleges of Thebes and Memphis the systematic pursuit of science and constant investigation of the mysteries of Nature were objects of the closest attention. The colossal works of architecture and sculpture with which the country is studded could only have been executed by a people amongst whom the mechanical arts were highly advanced; and though the fragility of glass renders it especially liable to utter destruction, there exists ample evidence in the specimens now enshrined in our museums that its manufacture was carried out to a degree of perfection that modern science has hitherto vainly sought to rival. The glass works of Alexandria were especially renowned for their vases with blue and white grounds and festoons of coloured glass, and their products were exported to Rome down to the days of Aurelian. Classic authors inform us that the Egyptians were famous for imitating gems in coloured glass; and bracelets, earrings, and trinkets of the purest gold set with these paste gems have been forthcoming to confirm this statement. Other specimens show that they could not only gild and engrave glass and fuse it into coloured mosaics, but that they possessed the art of fusing gold in

glass so as to unite-an art till now looked upon as being as utterly lost as that of tempering copper to the hardness of the finest steel which the Egyptians also practised. Hence glass thus instudded with granulated gold has been hitherto regarded as one of the rarest and most curious relics of antiquity.

The skill of the Romans in treating glass was not inferior, as is proved by such existing masterpieces as the Strasburg, the Naples, and the Portland vases-the latter, which is held to date from the days of the Antonines, being long mistaken for a carved mass of sardonyx, though now found to consist of dark blue transparent glass with figures in relief in white opaque glass. We may hesitate to believe the story of the inventor of malleable glass whom Tiberius is said to have rewarded by cutting his head off; but there exist numerous gems in glass executed in a style which explains how the Emperor Gallienus was deceived by the lapidary, whom he punished by exposing him in the circus to the assaults of-a fowl. Elaborate glass mosaics fused into a solid mass and combining brilliancy of colouring with accuracy of outline explain, too, how easily Heliogabalus could give a banquet at which all the viands were imitated to perfection in glass. In these mosaics gold is found inclosed between two layers of glass fused together. A specimen of Roman glass ornamenting the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey shows shows a thin layer of gold leaf thus inclosed between an under sheet of reddish opaque glass and an upper one of white transparent glass. Thus it is not to be wondered at that the Egyptian art of instudding glass vessels with granulated gold was also practised by the Romans. In the Slade collection there is a small

glass bottle of the Roman era with loops or festoons of dark blue, green, and powdered gold edged with brown, all amalgamated in the substance and penetrating from the outer to the inner surface.

The art of putting a sheet of leaf gold on glass, tracing a design with a point, and superposing another coating of glass, survived the transfer of the seat of Roman empire to Byzantium, and was especially applied to the ornamentation of the bottoms of drinking vessels with figures of Christ and the Apostles -specimens of which are still extant.

The Venetians, who had inherited some of the traditions of the Romans, and who attracted Greek workmen before and after the fall of Constantinople, were long the sole possessors of the art of embedding white or coloured filigrane work in transparent glass, so as to form regular design and delicate outline. They were also to a certain extent aware of a method of imbedding granulated gold in glass. A Venetian flask powdered with gold dust is engraved in Sauzay's "Marvels of Glass Making," and though that writer hesitates to decide whether in this instance the gold was mixed with the vitreous mass, or sprinkled over the vessel when it left the furnace, and then coated over with a mask or layer of glass, a passage from Handiquer de Blancourt's "Art of Glass," published in 1697, professes to cast light on the method pursued : "Take a glass and moisten it everywhere you desire to gild with gum water, lay on your gold leaf, letting it dry. This done, run the gold over with water wherein borax has been dissolved, and so dust it with impalpable powder of glass. Set it afterwards by degrees into your furnace until it becomes red hot, and the powder on the gilding being melted runs; then draw it out

leisurely, letting it cool at the mouth of the furnace, and you will have your glass very finely gilded, so that nothing in nature can spoil it unless it be broken," says this author, whose writings were based to some extent on those of Neri the Venetian.

In the eighteenth century the inclosure of a film of gold leaf between two layers of glass was sometimes carried out in Bohemia, but the art of uniting granulated gold with glass was utterly lost.

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A new worker, however, Mons. P. R. F. D'Humy, has not only accomplished the feat of reviv ing the lost art of uniting gold, silver, platinum, and other precious metals with glass, but has successfully solved the additional problem of the union of glass with porcelain and its kindred substances. It is true that early in the present century figures of clay were inclosed in glass in Bohemia, and that the French succeeded in producing ceramic medallions — notably of the first Napoleon-encased in glass, which fetched high prices. These were, however, merely encased and not united with the vitreous inclosure, and their fabrication was costly, tedious, and uncertain, owing to the difficulty of regulating the shrinkage and getting rid of air bubbles. In the same way, the fact of coloured and white glass fusing at various degrees of heat rendered it difficult to introduce devices of the former which should retain an accurate outline, and made the reproduction of much of the old Venetian filigrane and millefiori work appear impracticable. Without entering into technical details it will be sufficient to remark that by a prolonged series of investigations as to the chemical constituents of various kinds of glass, and to the effect of different degrees of temperature on each and all of these,

Mons. D'Humy has succeeded in controlling at will the shrinkage to which the products of his furnaces are liable, and by this means can assimilate substances of such widely differing natures as glass and metal or porcelain.

Combining glass, the most beautiful of fragile materials, with gold and other solid substances, he has achieved the union of grace and strength. He not only introduces gold and other metallic substances into glass, either in the shape of sparkling granules, plainly sprinkled or arranged in arabesque patterns, delicately wrought ornaments, ciphers, or monograms, reproductions of natural objects, &c., in which instances the more fragile becomes the preserver of the more durable material by protecting it from exposure or wear; but he can blow glass into a pierced metal casing or network so as to secure perfect incorporation and union, unaffected by shrinkage or cooling. Looking at some of the results of his labours,-as, for instance, an exquisitely wrought monogram in solid gold embedded in the substance of a smelling-bottle of thick clear crystal glass-the wondering query of George III. as to "how the apple got into the dumpling is irresistibly suggested, whilst the case of "the fly in amber" is reversed, for the mere bewilderment as to how it got there does not blind one to its intrinsic merits of workmanship and design. Another feat achieved by Mons. D'Humy is the tempering of the tempering of coloured glass to any degree of hardness and specific gravity desired. Artificial gems thus produced-rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, &c.-are embedded in the substance of white, tinted, or gold-sprinkled glass, and retaining, when thus encased, all their sharpness of outline and brilliancy of colour, produce a startling effect.

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Moreover Mons. D'Humy's glass in general is annealed to a toughness far superior to that of ordinary glass.

The triumphant result of his researches in pyronomy is best appreciated by a visit to the Aurora Gallery, No. 294, Regentstreet, where masterpieces, far too numerous to recapitulate, are displayed. A single glance round the gallery, with its cups jewelled like that of Giamschid, its graceful vases in which Cleopatra might have melted the pearl, its classic urns worthy to have enshrined the ashes of a Roman emperor, its flasks and goblets of twisted filigrane which the Donati and Morosini would have placed amidst their choicest gems of Venetian art, its tazze, which would not have been misplaced on the sideboard of Nero or the table of Lucullus, its dishes eclipsing the Sacro Cattino which the Genoese fondly claimed to have been wrought out of a single emerald, its elegant ewers fit to have graced the boudoirs of Aspasia-a glance at these in which gold, silver, and platinum sparkle in combination with glass of every tint, would convey a better notion than pages of description. An artist as well as a chemist-a worthy successor of the great art workmen of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Matsys, Cellinis, della Robbias, Palissys-Mons. D'Humy has sought, and most successfully, to characterise all his productions by beauty both of outline and colouring. Noblesse oblige, and he has never forgotten that glassworking was an art in which a noble could engage without derogation, as when in the seventeenth century French gentlemen wrought at it blowpipe in hand and sword by side. Yet, whilst refraining from all violation of the canons of art, the very originality of con

and

ception that must distinguish the master has led him to produce combinations of form and hue entirely original, and hence befitting the novel materials he has so successfully handled. For instance, numerous specimens exhibiting latticinio threads and twisted canes of white coloured glass arranged in lengths or sectional cuttings, differ from modern replicas of old Venetian work by bold and tasteful innovations in shape and colour enhanced by the introduction of gold. His pyrological studies, too, have led him to triumph in unwonted tints, due to the action of heat upon glass variously combined.

We owe Mons. D'Humy the proverbial debt of gratitude due to the man who makes two blades of grass grow where only one has flourished, since he has by his discovery given an impetus to both art and industry. In vases of every variety, cups, glasses, dishes, tazze, lustres, salvers,

ewers,

bottles, decanters, flasks, epergnes, lamp stands, and the like, a style of decoration as novel as artistic cannot fail to win favour. But, independently of mere beauty, the infinite variety of purposes to which Mons. D'Humy is able to apply glass must not be lost sight

of, the immense control he can exercise in working it enabling him to convert it in a form combining cheapness, toughness, and agreeable aspect to innumerable every-day purposes. For instance, the Roman plan of panelling walls and ceilings with coloured glass will henceforward be within the reach of alla fact worthy the attention of decorative builders. Balustrades, cornices, columns, panels, and numerous other objects can be readily turned out, whilst for countless minor articles, door handles, knife handles, penholders, and the like, its lightness, toughness, and brilliancy will render it acceptable.

One recognition of Mons. D'Humy's labours has been the award of two medals at the recent Paris Exhibition, where the collection he displayed was inspected on several occasions with constantly renewed interest by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who has moreover honoured the inventor with a commission to execute a pair of specially designed vases. It is with a view of making a discovery of such importance more widely known that the Aurora Glass Company, with which Mons. D'Humy has identified himself, has just opened the Gallery of Specimens at the address already named.

IRELAND IN 1880.

FROM three of the four provinces of Ireland, a cry has arisen that in intensity of sound and vehemence of language has no parallel since the fatal famine period of 1846. That a catastrophe such as then overtook the inhabitants of the island should again happen to them is a simple impossibility, for, in Ireland, the last thirty years have done the ordinary work of a century, and the whole structure of society has undergone alteration. The treatment of the soil, the habits of the people, their ways of life, their food, their clothing, in all these there have been changes great and manifold, and not always for the better. A few words will make this clear. In the old days the prosperity of Ireland, such as it was, rested mainly on two crops-wheat and potatoes. Wheat ground into flour in hundreds of mills, now mostly in ruins, was shipped off to feed the workers in wool and cotton in Yorkshire and Lancashire, the proceeds finally reaching the pockets of landlords. Potatoes only remained to the people, and they fed a population exceeding eight millions, innumerable pigs and poultry, and, in no small degree, horned cattle and horses. Except in Egypt, and possibly in Bengal, it is doubtful whether so small an area has ever sustained so great an amount of animal life, and the fact puzzled philosophers then, and has puzzled practical men ever since. Agriculture has improved, artificial manures have been invented, chemistry applied to the soil, and yet

the land has not produced a potatoe crop to approach in productiveness the result of Paddy's simple spade husbandry, probably little altered since Sir Walter Raleigh first planted the tuber in his garden at Youghal three hundred years ago.

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A merit of this system of agriculture was the great amount of human labour it required. What was called a strong farmer, that is, a holder of 80 to 100 acres of land, supported in his house, living with his family and sleeping in his barn, from eight to ten boys, as they were called, that is, unmarried men from eighteen to thirty years of age; but it was in the roadside cabins, the ruins of which thousands are still to be seen, that the great bulk of the peasantry had their homes. These houses, seldom exceeding in dimensions 10ft. by 20ft., were usually divided into two rooms, a kitchen or living room and a bedroom, with in some cases a loft over the latter. They were not well ventilated, they were not clean, and the smoke often went the wrong way; the pig had his corner, the hens roosted in the chimney. Paddy, the wife, and six children (for the average was not less) made not less) made up the family group. Behind the house lay the patch of potatoe ground, not far off was probably a turf bench, but other vegetable than the potatoe there was none. A stranger to the country might take this for the abode of misery; it was in fact just the reverse-there

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