GLASS IN DAILY LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 12 (Supplement)

GLASS IN DAILY LIFE.

1 ■ 1 No one knows when glass was first made or who made it; its early history is lost in antiquity. But we do know that it existed over 3000 years ago, for the Book of Job tells us that " Wisdom cannot he estimated after gold and glass," and there is mention of it also in the Proverbs of Solomon. Whatever its origin, glass to-day is one of the most familiar and indispensable factors of modern civilisation. Without its use in the telescope we should have practically no knowledge of the realms of Bpacc, and without the microscope many lives would be lost through ignorance of injurious bacteria. In war and peace we should be without the periscope, field-glass, range-finder, and X-ray; the mariner's compass and our timepiece would be uncovered and inaccurate. Our eyesight would suffer from lack of correction, shop windows and wireless would not exist, and the night would find us in darkness for the lack of electric bulbs and lamp chimneys—wc should have to return to the candle, and—the greatest tragedy of all to the feminine mind—we should be without mirrors and cinemas! These are but a few examples of how modern civilisation would be completely paralysed if the art of glassmaking were lost.

Reinforced "safety" glass, Buch as is used in motor cars, is made by working wire screening between two layers of molten glass, or by fastening several layers of plate glass together under pressure with some plastic or gummy cement. Behind a plate of this glass an inch thick one can stand quite safely and be unhurt by a .45 steel-nosed bullet. A two-inch plate will withstand a 30.30 machine gun bullet.