Some were blowing fiery bubbles, which put to shame all the soap-bubbles in the world. 2. Others were shaping the glowing metal; there were noises like the reports of pocket pistols, and sounds of clanging iron, where boys were occupied in knocking off cold glass from the ends of iron rods into small sheet-iron carriages. Altogether the scene was so dazzling and confusing, that Lawrence at first thought there was little chance of his learning any more about glass-making than he already knew. 3. First, one had a bubble, then another had it; then it had disappeared, and the man who, as he thought, had it, was quietly at work upon a lamp-chimney or a goblet, while he knew no more how he came by it than if it had been produced by magic. 4. It seemed to him that these men and boys, common as they were in personal appearance, must be true sorcerers in the disguise of ordinary humanity, so deftly and yet indifferently did they move about in this scene of wonder, working spell-like transformations with a substance which is usually associated in our minds with all that is frail, brittle, and unmanageable. This illusion dissolved, however, when he noticed that a man with a pug nose, who was carelessly shaping some object of crystalline splendor, had a pipe in his mouth! 5. He counted four separate furnaces. Two were on one side, and seemed to be merely large ovens with flaming mouths. These, he was told, were the leers where the newly-made glass-ware was annealed. Then, near each end of the building, standing by the great chimneys, like dwarfs beside giants, were two small, round furnaces, blazing at several mouths, called glory-holes." At these men and boys were constantly heating and reheating articles of glass to be worked. 6. The great chimneys themselves looked like circular brick towers, with port-holes of fire. Into the port-holes men were thrusting iron rods, and taking out lumps of melted metal. 7. These masses of melted metal were shaped on tables or blown into globes, or dropped into moulds. “These, then,” he thought, "are the big furnaces; and those port-holes must be the necks of the melting pots." A workman took his long iron pipe-it was, perhaps, five feet long and an inch in diameter-and thrust one end of it into the neck of a pot and commenced turning it, which process is called gathering. 8. When the workman had got what he judged to be a sufficient quantity of the melted ore on the end of the iron-it was a lump somewhat larger than a butternut he took it out and rolled it on a small polished iron table, which the old gentleman said was a marver. 9. The workman having reduced the soft lump to a shape suitable for his purpose, put the other end of the pipe to his lips and began to blow. Lawrence, watching him closely, could see a little bubble of air push out into the lump, which at the same time began to swell into a bulb. 10. He continued to blow, and the lump continued to expand. Now he held it down near the floor, and swung it gently to and fro. Still he kept blowing at intervals, and increasing its size, while the motion stretched it until it had become a larger bulb with a long neck. 11. Then he touched the end to the ground, to prevent it from expanding further in that direction; in the meanwhile the thin glass of the neck had become cool, and ceased to enlarge; so that now, when he blew again, the thicker and softer glass of the sides of the bulb swelled out into a more spherical form. LESSON III. HOW LAMP-CHIMNEYS ARE MADE. PART SECOND. Trans pâr'ent, clear. light. Con vinced', satisfied by Pre ĕm'i nent ly, with supe riority over others. Lū'rid, glowing with a murky In'stru ment, that by which TH work is done; a tool. Sim'i lar, nearly like. Ex changed', one taken in place of the other. In sẽrt ́ed, put within. HE metal was now shaped something like a small gourd, hanging by its straight stem from the end of the pipe, and the glass which had been at a white heat at first, had become transparent at the neck, and a dull, lurid red in the bulb. The workman now took an instrument in his hand and pinched the thick, soft glass at the end of the bulb into a button, like a blow at the end of a gourd. 2. All this was done in scarcely more than a minute's time, and Lawrence was amused to observe that the blower, while producing these magical effects, had never once taken his clay pipe from his mouth. 3. "How can you blow and smoke at the same time?” he asked, as the man stood twirling his glass gourd in the air, waiting for a boy to come and take it. "I should think you would blow the smoke and tobacco out of your pipe." 4. "O, I just clasp my tongue over the end of it, and stop the hole when I blow," was the answer. A boy now ran up and took the iron tube with the glass on its end. Lawrence followed him, convinced that the only way of learning how an article was made, was to watch it from the beginning through each stage of the process. 5. The boy handed it to a workman sitting on a chair-shaped bench, with strong straight arms, across which he laid the iron with the glass, at his right hand. Turning the rod by rolling it under his left hand, like a lathe, he gave the button another pinch, and then knocked it off. 6. "The instrument he uses looks like a pair of sheep-shears," said Lawrence, "only the blades are duller. What are they called, sir?" 99 7. "The old name pucellas has gone out with us, said the old gentleman; "we call it simply a pair of tools. They are preeminently the glass-blower's toolshe shapes everything with them." 8. The workman in the meanwhile had handed the pipe back to the boy, who thrust the glass into the flames of one of the "glory-holes." 9. "It is coal tar that gives that hot flash," said the old gentleman. "In the other glory-hole furnace, over yonder, we burn resin. He is heating the glass again so that it can be shaped." 10. It was the work of a few moments; and the glass was handed, glowing, back to the workman, who had in the meantime taken the button off from another precisely similar glass, which had been handed him by another boy. 11. This he now exchanged for the first. He laid the pipe across the arms of the bench, as before, and, turning it rapidly under his hand, pushed the point of one blade of his "sheep-shears," or tools, into the hole left by the knocked-off button. Having opened it a little, he inserted both points, and gradually enlarged the hole, now to the size of a penny, then to the size of a dollar, and lastly to that of a little tin cap that he fitted to a rim, which, in working, he had turned outward upon the edge of the glass. 12. He used the tin cap as a measure, and it was laid aside when the rim was found to be of the right size. It was less than a minute's work, and that end of the gourd was finished. But it was no longer a gourd; it was a lamp-chimney! J. T. TROWBRIDGE. LESSON IV. THE BATTLE OF LIFE. As signed', given; allotted. Pop'pies, flowers from which the sleep-producing opium is made. Lō'tŭs, a plant which produces fo.getfulness. En wreath'ing, with a wreath. Ärʼmor, a covering, usually of steel iron or brass, which protects the body in battle. Breast'plate, that part of the armor which protects the breast. surrounding Shield, a broad. flat piece of ar Hěl'met, that part of the armor which covers the head. mor worn on the arm to protect the body; anything which defends. G O forth in the Battle of Life, my boy- For the years go out, and the years come in, 2. And the troops march steadily on, my boy, |