Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/325

294 THE HISTORY Book L of the manufactory for many ages - The fand of the Tyrian, fhore, for the fpace of half a mile about the mouth of the Belus, was peculiarly adapted to the making of glafs, being neat and glittering ,3 . And the wide range of the Tyriaa commerce rte- ceffarily gave a large vent to the productions of the furnace. Bur before the conqueft of Lancashire public glafs-houfe* were ereCted in Italy, in Spain, in Gaul '*, and in Rrkaifl. Hence in many parts of Britain have been difcoverdd fmall annulets of glafs, having a narrow perforation and a thick, rim, denominated by the remaining Britons Gleineu Naidroedh or Glafs-adders, and, as the continuing fuperftitions concerning them detiaonftrate, once ufed as talifmaris among the druids t$ . And hence in the Narrows upon Salifbury Plain, which are certainly older than the invafion of the Romans, and which are -probably * prior . to the encroachments of the Belgae, beads of glafs have been dis- covered in numbers. Many of them were fragle and pierced for the introduction of a firing, ' and many were combined .toge- ther m the making, and twitted round a fmall rod of the fame metal M . Thus proficients as the Britons certainly were in the art of manufacturing annulets and beads of glafs, no queftion can be made but they applied it dire&ly to domeftic ufes, and formed with it many domeftic inftruments. And hiftory aflures us that they actually did, and that they manufactured a confiderafele quantity of glafs-veffels ,7 . Thefe without doubt, like their annulets, were green, blue, yellow, or black, and many of them curiodfly ftreaked with other colours l8 . And the procefs, in the manufactory of the glafs muft have been nearly the fame without doubt among the Britons, as it was among the Spaniards and the Gauls. The fand of the fhores being reduced to a fuf- .ficient finenefs by art, it was mingled with three-fourths of nitre, and both were melted together. The metal was then poured into other veflels, was left to harden into a mate, and was after- wards replaced in the furnace. There it became clear $nd tranfparent in the boiling, and was then figured by blowing: or modelled by the lathe into all fuch veflels as were wanted **• And ■i