POETRY. "THY WILL BE DONE." "COME hither, George, and Marian, And soft her accents fell. And George, the rosy, dark-eyed rogue, Came bounding at her will; And Isabel, the darling, And charmer, meek and still. "Now, should you offer prayers to heaven, ?" "OI would pray, that God would send His bright heaven down to earth; Nor take us from his loved ones:" Said George, in thoughtless mirth. "And I," said loving Isabel, “Would ask, my darling mother, That we might die together, Thou, Marian, I, and brother." Then Marian raised her thoughtful eyes, "Be this my prayer, my mother dear, "Father, thy will be done." Englishwoman's Magazine. A GLASS MANUFACTORY. GLASS is a very useful, transparent substance, which is applied to many important purposes. Our houses would be very uncomfortable if we had no glass for windows; we should frequently have the wind and rain beating into them, or be without the light of the sun in them. Pliny, an ancient writer, says, that the art of making glass was discovered in the following manner. A merchant vessel, laden with nitre, having been driven ashore on the coast of Palestine, near the river Belus, the crew went in search of provisions, and set the kettles in which they boiled their food on some lumps of nitre. Some of the nitre was dissolved by the fire, and mingled with the river sand, and formed a mass of glass. This suggested the mode of making this beautiful substance for useful purposes; and, by gradual improvements, its manufacture was brought to a high state of perfection. The principal materials of which glass is composed are sand, or pulverised flints, mixed with soda, chiefly made from a sea-weed, or with pearl-ashes, made from the ashes of burnt wood; nitre, lime, and litharge of lead, are also employed to fuse and improve the mixed substances of which glass is made, and sometimes a small portion of the black oxide of manganese is added, to render the glass free from colour. In scientific language, glass is said to be compounded of silica, or flinty earth, fused with alkalies. Sand, and pulverised flints, are called silica. Nitre, soda, and pearlashes, are alkalies. Soap-boilers' waste, and kelp, are also used as alkalies in the manufacture of glass. The proportions of the different substances from which glass is made, vary according to the kind of glass required, and according to the judgment of the manufacturer. The materials, before they are melted, are put into ovens to be freed from all moisture. In this process they are made very hot, but not sufficiently to dissolve them. This process is termed fritting, and occupies a considerable time. After this, the materials are thrown into the glass-pot, to be melted. In this they are subjected to a very intense heat. The furnace in which the materials are melted is closed up with wet clay, excepting a small hole for examining the progress of the melting. Soon after being placed in the melting-pots, the mass is in motion, and soon becomes a red-hot liquid body. The heat of the furnace has to be kept up for from twelve to eighteen hours; and during the process, samples are taken out of the pots, to ascertain the state of the liquid mass. When it has become sufficiently melted, the heat of the furnace is reduced, and the mass, which is now called metal, is allowed to cool. Some particles of undissolved substances, which float on the top of the pots, are carefully skimmed off. When the metal has cooled sufficiently to be worked, it is still soft, and easily yields to the breath of the glass-worker, yet is so tenacious as to retain the shape into which it is formed. It is so soft and adhesive, that it may be drawn out in a fine thread, and wound round a reel. When the metal is cooled into a state fit to be worked, a workman takes an iron tube, four or five feet long, called a blowing-iron, and dips it into the melting-pot, and turns it round, until a sufficient quantity of the metal adheres to the iron; he then takes it out, and hands it to the blower, who rolls the metal on a stone, or iron-plate, then puts the end of the blowing-iron, having the metal on it, towards the ground, and blows in at the other end of the iron, and thus the mass of glass becomes hollow, and is extended to its proper thickness and shape, by the blowing and skill of the workman. In making some articles, moulds are used to aid the blower in giving the articles their proper shape. A piece of cold wire, applied to the part where the glass is united to the blowing iron, causes the article which has been blown to break off from the blowing-iron, just as though it had been cut off. Some articles are made by putting the liquid glass into moulds. Common windowglass is made by blowing and twirling the metal, and plateglass is made by pouring the metal upon iron tables, rolling it while fluid into sheets, which are afterwards ground to a face and polished. Buildings for the making of glass are usually in the form of cones, from fifty to eighty feet in diameter, and from sixty to a hundred feet high. The furnace is in the middle, and under it is an open space, of a sufficient width to allow a workman, with a wheelbarrow, to go in and out to remove the rubbish. The crucibles, or melting-pots, are made of clay. The Stourbridge clay makes the best pots. Those used for bottles and window-glass are generally made about forty inches in diameter, and of about the same depth. When glass has been put into the shape required, it has to be subjected to the process, termed annealing. This is done by putting it into ovens, in which it is heated and allowed gradually to cool; by this means it becomes less liable to be broken. There are several kinds of glass. The coarsest is common bottle-glass; the next quality is common windowglass; another kind is called flint-glass, of which decanters and drinking-glasses are made; plate-glass is another description of fine glass. Besides these, a variety of coloured glasses are made; some of which are very beautiful. Formerly, glass was very expensive; some of the materials of which it is composed were dearer than they are now, and there was a heavy tax upon it, which, a few years' since, was removed. It was not until near ten hundred years after the birth of Christ that window-glass was used in England. The windows of houses, and even of cathedrals, were either formed of lattice-work or horn, or covered with linen cloth. An English historian, who wrote in year 1584, says "Of old time our country-houses instead of glass did use much lattice, and that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise. I read also, that some of the better sort, in and before the time of the Saxons, did make panels of horne instead of glass, and fix them in wooden casements, but horne in windows is now quite laid down (or discontinued) in every place, because glass is come to be plentiful and good." It is, however, now more plentiful and better than ever it was before. Dr. Johnson, in referring to glass, wrote as follows: "By some fortuitous liquefaction mankind was taught to produce a body at once in a high degree solid and transparent, which might admit the light of the sun, and exclude the violence of the wind; which might extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and charm him at one time with the unbounded extent of the material creation, and at another with the endless subordination of animal life; and, what is yet of more importance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old age with subsidiary sight. Thus was the first artificer in glass employed, though without his own knowledge or expectation. He was facilitating and prolonging the enjoyment of light, enlarg ing the avenues of science, and conferring the highest and most lasting pleasures; he was enabling the student to contemplate nature, and the beauty to behold herself." DESTRUCTION OF THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN. The Philadelphia Christian Observer has published the following article, it being a part of an address made in that city by the Rev. Mr. Lehmanowsky, formerly a Colonel in Napoleon's army, from 1792 till 1814. He is now a minister |