shaped, and marked with alternate bands of red and blue, the colors being separated by a narrow white line. These beads are found in England, on

it was introduced into Rome as early as the time of Cicero. It is said that the tribute from that country was required by the Emperor Aurelian to be paid in articles of glass. At Alexandria extensive glass works were in operation when Strabo wrote. Articles of exquisite workmanship were produced, but of great cost, and known only as luxuries. Vases, and cups, and bottles, some enameled and beautifully cut, and wrought with. raised figures, and some remarkable for the brilliancy of their colors, were furnished to the Romans. Strabo says that a peculiar kind of earth was found near Alexandria, without which it was impossible to make certain kinds of glass of many colors, and of a brilliant quality. As a proof of the high value attached to this particular kind of glass, it is stated that some vases presented by an Egyptian priest to the Emperor Hadrian were considered so curious and valuable that he kept them in a secret cabinet, and used them only on grand occasions.

Among the most curious examples of persistence in art, are the well-known Aggry beads, which occur everywhere in Africa, and in many parts of Asia and Europe. Similar beads are still made for the purpose of barter by glass-makers in England and Italy; yet they appear among the oldest remains in many widely separated places. Some are of the opinion that they are Phoenician, and that they were made for purposes of barter with uncivilized nations, like the ancient Gauls and Britains. Glass beads of extreme hardness have been found in British graves, and on

the Gold Coast, in India and Germany, in Italy and Egypt. They are particularly common in the cities along the course of the Rhine. The oldest specimens must be Egyptian; but in all probability the pattern was continued in many distinct manufactories at many different periods. Very analogous are little vases of similarly indented patterns; but generally only of blue and white, or blue and yellow. One is black and white only. Another is very vivid green, with yellow and blue zigzags. These little vases are common in all the museums, and are occasionally found in early tombs in Egypt, in Cyprus, and other Greek islands.

It is probable that the ancients carried the art of glass-making to a higher degree of perfection than ourselves, and we may add that they used it for more purposes, excepting of course windows, which, however, is not today a very important use for glass in warm climates. Several of the ancient writers speak of a kind of malleable glass which, when thrown upon the ground, was merely indented, and could be restored to shape with a hammer, as if it were brass. Glass-makers in our day are unacquainted with any process by which such a quality of the ware may be produced. Some metallic salts, as chloride of silver, possess ductility, at the same time with a glassy appearance; but all modern. experience has never yet been able to produce malleability in a vitrified body.

Again, in their glass mosaic work, the ancients have not yet been equaled. In the Boolak Museum are some exquisite specimens of the art, probably of the

Greeks. Dr. Schliemann found disks of glass in the excavations at Mycenæ, though Homer does not mention it as a substance known to him.

Totally different from anything we have mentioned is glass ornamented with colored enamel painting. It is rare, but appears to be of Roman manufacture. Two specimens were found with some Roman bronzes in Denmark, probably the spoil of some piratical viking. Later and less meritorious is a large class of objects simply painted, such as the Christian disks found in the catacombs, which seem originally to have been the feet or stands of drinking vessels. Some rare examples present a portrait worked on a gold ground, and perhaps used as a kind of locket worn around the neck, like the wellknown bulls of a Roman bay. They date from about the second century to the fifth, and one example has the name of the person represented.

It is difficult to say to a certainty whether the ancients employed glass for the purpose of making lamps or lanterns. No direct information on the subject is given by the old authors. Herodotus indeed mentions a "fête of burning lamps" practiced by the Egyptians at a certain period of the year, and describes the lamps used on the occasion as "small flat vessels filled with salt and olive oil, the wick floating on the surface and burning all night," but he does not say of what material these vessels were made, and they may either have been of glass or of earthenware. Nor do the Egyptian paintings throw much light on the subject, though in the sculptures of Tel-el-Amarna a guard of soldiers are represented, one of whom holds before him what is evidently a lamp, resembling much the glass lanterns so common at the present day.

in that respect.
Only a few of the
houses in Pompeii had windows of
glass, thus showing that it was not in
general use. The Romans had an
excellent substitute for it in sheets
of mica, which were used when a
protection of this sort was required.
In the warm climates of Eastern
countries there was no very impor-
tant demand for glass in windows.
Even to the present day it is not in
much use in those regions for that
purpose. But in Western lands the
use of glass has grown to be a neces-
sity, as well as a luxury. The first
window of that material in England
dates back to the seventh century,
but for private houses it long con-
tinued to be a rarity, and even up
to the twelfth century houses provi-
ded with glass windows were re-
garded as magnificent. Colored win-
dow glass is known to have been
used in churches as early as 750 A.D.;
but it was not until after the Crusades
that glass came to be at all common
among Western nations.

The Arabs succeeded the Egyptians in their wondrous faculty for glassmaking. For several centuries they led the world in this art. The Saracenic mosques and palaces became the receptacles of marvelous creations of grace, ingenuity and beauty. The great lamps of the mosque of Sultan Hassan were famous throughout the civilized world. The famous clepsydra or water-clock presented to Charlemagne by the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid was of glass. During the Crusades the knowledge of glass and the art of making it was greatly improved in the Western mind by means of the intercourse with that brilliant people. The Venetians were the first to cultivate the art with any success. Some timein the thirteenth century a glassmanufactory was established at Murano, an island adjacent to Venice. By another century the reputation of the Muranese workmen

The ancients did not use glass for windows to much extent, although they knew its conveniences

was unsurpassed. Under the fostering care of the republic their manufactures were prosecuted successfully for centuries. Extraordinary privileges were bestowed upon the workmen, and a Muranese glass-blower was equal in rank to nobles.

It was at Murano that the first glass mirrors were made. The invention took all Europe by storm, and it was not long before the mirrors of polished metal were discarded for the new invention. For a long time the demand could not be supplied, and kings and princes often sued in vain for the rich ware of the Muranese workmen. Many of the ornamental objects produced by these skillful artists were exceedingly ingenious, and are reproduced and admired at the present day. Such are the glass beads and the Venetian balls that have been so long used for paper weights, made by combining together colored pieces of waste filigree glass to imitate the forms of flowers, ferns, and mosses, and introducing these into globules of transparent glass, which are inade to collapse upon the designs by the glassblower drawing in his breath, and thus exhausting the air from the globe. The lens form of the outer cover

of different colors, which are melted to the outside of lumps of glass when partially shaped into de

ing increased the effect by magnifying the object within. The filigree work is produced by glass rods

canters or other vessels. The Venetian frosted glass is an old invention, although rediscovered