Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/462

This page has been validated.
444
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

subsequently enlarged and improved, and glass-making became one of the recognized industries of Pittsburg. A glass-house has ever since been in continuous operation upon the very site of this early factory. It can not be said, however, that glass-making was really an assured success in Pittsburg until as late as 1830.

The other colonies were also more or less active in glass production. Attracted by the cheapness of fuel and labor, Mr. Robert Hewes, of Boston, set up a glass-house at Temple, N. H., in 1780. Like most industrial pioneers, he had rather a hard time of it, and, after making some window glass and hollow ware, abandoned the enterprise in the following year. A reference in Washington's diary shows that glass was made in New Haven, Conn., in 1789, and a glass-house is known to have been in operation at about the same time in Hartford. In Maryland the industry obtained quite a firm footing. The Legislature encouraged it by loans, and the General Government in 1789, at the instance of Mr. Carroll, gave American glass works the protection of a ten-per-cent customs duty. The first factory was located at Tuscarora Creek, near Frederickstown, and was known as the Etna Glass Works. Like so many other glass factories, it was under German management, the owner being Mr. John F. Amelung. The works were started in 1775 and were moved to Baltimore in 1788. Both sheet glass and bottles were produced, the output enjoying a high reputation for superior quality. But, in spite of its technical success, the venture was a financial failure, and had finally to be abandoned. The "Baltimore Glass Works," established in 1790, were more successful, and, I believe, are still in operation.

[To be continued.]



By the death of Lord Tennyson, says Nature, "not only does England lose one of her noblest sons, but the world loses the poet who, above all others who have ever lived, combined the love and knowledge of Nature with the unceasing study of the causes of things and of Nature's laws. When from this point of view we compare him with his forerunners, Dante is the only one it is needful to name; but although Dante's knowledge was abreast of his time, he lacked the fullness of Tennyson, for the reason that in his day science was restricted within narrow limits. It is right and fitting that the highest poetry should be associated with the highest knowledge, and in the study of science, as Tennyson has shown us, we have one of the necessary bases of the fullest poetry—a poetry which appeals at the same time to the deepest emotions and the highest and broadest intellects of mankind. Tennyson, in short, has shown that science and poetry, so far from being antagonistic, must forever advance from side to side." Tennyson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and that body was represented at his funeral by its president and officers. Prof. Lockyer speaks very highly of Tennyson's interest in astronomy and acquaintance with it.