The “Westminster” Series
GLASS MANUFACTURE
GLASS
MANUFACTURE
BY
WALTER ROSENHAIN B.A. B.C.E.
SUPERINTENDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF METALLURGY AND
METALLURGICAL CHEMISTRY AT THE NATIONAL
PHYSICAL LABORATORY
NEW YORK
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY
23 MURRAY AND 27 WARREN STREETS
1908
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS,
LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
The present volume on Glass Manufacture has beenwritten chiefly for the benefit of those who are users ofglass, and therefore makes no claim to be an adequate guideor help to those engaged in glass manufacture itself. Forthis reason the account of manufacturing processes hasbeen kept as non-technical as possible; no detailed drawingsof plant or appliances have been given, and only a fewillustrative diagrams have been introduced for the purposeof avoiding lengthy verbal descriptions. In describing eachprocess the object in view has been to give an insight intothe rationale of each step, so far as it is known or understood,and thus to indicate the possibilities and limitationsof the process and of its resulting products rather than toprovide a detailed guide to the technique of the variousoperations. The practical aim of the book has further beensafeguarded by the fact that the processes described in thesepages are, with the exception of those described as obsolete,to the author’s definite knowledge, in commercial use at thepresent time. For this reason many apparently ingeniousand beautiful processes described in earlier books on glasshave not been mentioned here, since the author could findno trace of their employment beyond the records of thevarious patents involved. On the other hand the readervimust be warned to bear in mind that the peculiar conditionsof the glass manufacturing industry have led to the practiceon the part of manufacturers of keeping their processes assecret as possible, so that the task of the author who wouldgive an accurate account of the best modern processes usedin any given department of the industry is beset with greatdifficulties. The author has endeavoured to steer the bestcourse open to him under these circumstances, and hewould appeal to the paucity of glass literature in theEnglish language as evidence of the difficulty to which herefers.
In addition to these difficulties, which arise largely fromconsiderations of a commercial nature, the writer of a bookon glass is further confronted with technical difficulties ofno inconsiderable order. As already indicated, the aim ofthe present author has been to describe processes from thepoint of view of principles and methods rather than as mererule-of-thumb descriptions of manufacturing manipulations,but in doing this he is met at every turn by the fact thatfrom the scientific side the greater part of the field of glassmanufacture is a “terra incognita.” In making thisstatement the labours of many eminent scientific workersare by no means forgotten, but the entire field is so largeand beset with such great experimental difficulties that eventhe labours of a list of investigators that includes the