Human Industry, Chapter 9
CAP. IX.
foreign: Touching the Invention of Glass and Glass-works.
GLass is made of bright shining sand, and the ashes of a weed called Cazal and Zuhit, —Calices vili de pu…v…re nati. Mart.and the Ferne called by the Arabians Kali Alkali, that is Glass-wort.
The invention was casual, and hinted thus, Certain glebes or large pieces of Nitre being brought out of a ship upon the shore, and taking fire by accident, melted the sand round about, so that it …an in a liquid transparent stream, as Pli…y relates l. 36. Nat. Hist. and Josephus …1. de bello Judaico; and the Sidonians …vere the first that took the hint or document therefrom; Sidon artifex vitri, Plin. …5. This noble liquor (as Pliny calls it) … so obsequious and pliant (while it is hot) that it may be spun into thred, and wrought into any form that a man can fancy; nay Art doth here imitate the Creation; for as God made creatures by the breath of his mouth, so the Artist makes glass with a breath, and blows it into what shape and figure he pleaseth. Vitrarius suo spiritu vitrum in habitus plurimos format, qui vix diligenti manu …ffingerentur, as a contemplative Philosopher observed of old touching this business, Sen. Epist. 90.
When it is cooled, it will not yeild to the point of any Iron or Steel, but only the Diamond; and the restless Quicksilver, that which pierces through Iron gold, and brass, will not pierce through this. Cups and Vessels made of gl…ss are very neat, clean, and wholsome. For they do not impart any ill tast or tincture to any liquor that is conteined in them.
And they were (no doubt) as precious at first in this Hemisphere of the world as now they are in some parts of the I…dies; for in the Kingdom of Tydor and other places, they exchange gold fo… glasses, as Pigafetta and sundry others d… do relate; so much are they taken wit… the aery brightness and transparency … them: Moreover glass doth not wear with the using: It admits no poyson, but be…rays it by breaking; any excessive cold or heat breaks it, especially if it be fine, like that of Venice; so Chrystal is impa…ient of heats, as Pliny tells us, and Martial the Epigrammist in an Epigram we quoted before,
Non sumus audacis Plebeia*Toreumata.] This word shews that glasses were …omtimes wrought upon the Turn, or the Tu…ners wheel, as earthen ves…els are; the word comes from foreign to turn; And Pliny doth …xpresly teach, that glass was wrought either by blowing of it, or by being Turned, or by being engraven like silver, l. 36. Nat. Hist. toreumata vitri
Nostra nec ardenti flamma feritur aqua.
The best of this kinde are made at th… Murano, a place within 2 miles of Venice, so that the Venice glasses do bear the bell from all others: Here to make their glasses so clear and transparent, and so like Coristal, they dip it (while it is hot) in clean water, whereby it is clarified, and made like the water it self, wherein it is so tincted and seasoned. Though the glass we now use be brittle ware, and easily shattered in pieces, yet there was an Artist in Rome in the Emperour Tiberius his time, that had found a way to make glass malleable and yeilding, and such as would bow rather then break; for the man bringing a glass-phial for a present to the Emperour to shew his art, he threw the Vessel against the stone pavement, with which blow it was not broken, but dented; then taking his hammer he beat in the dent again, to the no small wonder of the spectators, as Dion relates in the 56th of his History, and Suetonius, with others. The man was secretly made away, and so the Art was supprest, lest gold should be discountenanc'd and become vile, as the same Suetonius adds in the life of that Emperour.
The use of glass is various and manifold, not only for making cups & vessels, but also for Looking-glasses, Telescopes, Microscopes, Thermometers, Sphears, Spectacles,Ocularia. or Lunulets, as the French, and Bis-oculi, as my Lord of St Albans calls them; by the help of glasses, weak eyes are strengthned, & old eyes become young and vigorous; small objects are magnified and represented much bigger, things invisible are made visible, & things that are behinde us, brought before us: Yea, what things are done in our neighbours houses, and in our enemies tents, are brought to our knowledge without any Mephistophilus or Magick Art. See Baptista Porta his third book of his Natural Magick.
Cornelius van Dreble, a Citizen of Alcmar in Holland, and a rare Engineer, who lived in King James his Court here in England (as we mentioned before) invented the Vitra Microscopia, the Microscopes or glasses whereby we plainly see and discover the subtilest objects and the smallest, as the distinct colours and members of Flies and Worms and Nits, and the spots and small grains in Gemms, as also in Urine or Blood, wch the eye could not otherwise discern. With these the Anatomists (in dissecting of bodies) discover the smallest veins and strings and fibres in the body of man or beast. There are Glasses called Thermosc…pi and Thermometers, which being placed in a mans chamber, will discover the disposition and temper of the air, whether it be hot or cold, moist or dry, or inclining to either, invented by one Sanctorius, a Physitian in Padua.
There are also Glasses called Telescopes, from their use in discovering things afarr off. invented first by Jacobus Meti…s of Alomar, as Des Cartes tells mee, and perfected (since) by Gallileo Gallilei the Florentine, whereby they have discovered many new stars in the firmament, which no mortal eyes had noted before, which will represent objects thirty times bigger than their apparent quantity, and a hundred times nearer than their apparent distance. By these men have discovered not only new stars, but also new worlds in the stars, brought the moon before them to be better surveyed and perused, which they finde to be another America, full of pleasant rivers, hills and dales, and also well inhabited with people (such as they are) viz. Lunatick people. One Telesius a Dane hath (of late) given us a Selenographia or description of the Countries and Provinces there, with their several maps. Cornelius Drebble before-mentioned had a little glass (but of a hands breadth in Diameter) which he called Fabus Opticus, wherewith he could distinctly see all the hills and spacious plains in the Lunary world, as also all the forrests, cities and buildings there, as Dr Gassendi relates it in l. 5. written of the life of Peyresc.
There are Burning-glasses, wherewith (like Prometheus) we fetch fire from heaven; to wit, that celestial coal the Sun, by gathering his fiery beams into some narrow compass, and uniting them to that strength, that they can set any combustible stuff on fire: With such glasses Archimedes fired the Roman ships in the Harbour of Syracuse, Mar…ell…s being General, as Plutarch reports in the life of Marcellus. With the like glasses Proclus (after him) defended Constantinople, by firing the ships of Vitalianus, who was beleaguering the town by sea, as Zonaras hath recorded in the life of Anastasius Dicorus. Roger Bacon out Countrey-man, a*Vir tam vastae d… ctrinae, ut Anglia, imo orbis, ca re nihil haberet simile aut secundum Voss. de artibus popular Artis magnae, l. 10. great Scholar and an acute man, told the Pope, That if he would be at the charge of making certain Burning-glasses after his direction, he would annoy the Turks more than all the Gallies of Italy, or an Army of an hundred thousand men could do, as Gaffarellus and others relate.
Kircher, a great Scholar (now living in Rome) confesseth that he hath busied his head very much about those glasses of Archimedes and Proclus, and about making the like, but he could never hit upon the experiment; and he saith, that he never saw or heard of any glasses (of late) that would burn above 15 paces distance. But Baptista Porta professes a way how to make glasses that would burn and fire things at any distance. And John Dee, an eminent Mathematician of this Nation, doth profess (in a preface to a book of his called Monas Hieroglyphica) the Art to make a Glass that should calcine stones and reduce them to impalpable dust: these are magnalia Artis. But these things have been yet but in speculation for ought I finde; not but that very strange and wonderfull things might be done in this kinde and many other waies, if there were any encouragement for Artists, or if any would go to the expence of proving some usefull experiments, that are projected and thought feasible by ingenious and rational heads for the publick benefit.
Archimedes, that rare wit of Syracuse, made a Sphear of Glass, which did represent the perfect order and motions of the Heavenly bodies, which (besides many others) Claudian makes mention and describes in one of his Epigrams, which is set down before in the 7th Chapter.
But Athanasius Kircher. de Magnete, l. 1.(whom wee often mentioned) doth affirm, That the Sphear was not all of Glass, but onelyonly the outside of it, that men might the better discern the wheels and motions within; yet Petrus Ramus tells us, that he saw at Paris two Sphears of Glass like those of Archimedes; one brought from the Sicilian, the other from the German spoils.
Marcus Scaurus made an Amphitheater of Glass, as Pliny relates in the 36th book cap. 15. But I finde by others that the Pavement was of Marble, and but the middle scene or story of Glass; which Glass was not our common Glass, neither (as I suppose) but rather Obsidian glass, which the same Pliny mentions elsewhere, and is found (or rather was found, for we hear of none now) in Aethiopta, which is very black like jet, and transparent as glass, friable and easy to be wrought with the cheesel; of which sort of glass was the stately Tomb which Ptolomy King of Egypt built at Alexandria for a Monument of Alexander the Great, as Strabo relates: And Herodotus also tells us,l. 17. Geogr. that this natural fossil-glass called Obsidian, was wont to be wrought hollow, and placed about dead bodies, as a Case through which they might be seen of the beholders. The Specular stone was of this kinde, but that it was brighter and liker to Crystal.
It was (anciently) used for windowes (as Martial shews) to keep out cold.
Hibernis objecta notis specularia puros
Admittunt soles, & sine faece Diem.
It ws also used for a defence to some choice fruits, that they might not be nipt in the bud with the cold frosts and Northern windes; but this kinde of Stone is not now extant; Guido Pancirollus returns it inter non inventa. Tit. 6.
Leander in his description of Italy makes mention of a compleat Galley of Glass that he had seen at Venice, and also a pair of Organs of Glass; to wit, of fusile or common ordinary Glass. Mr James Howell saw such a Galley at the Murano of late times, as he informs us in his History of Venice.
As Glass is diaphanous, and permits a free passage of species through its body, as freely as air or water doth, so it is also reflexive, and beats back the said species that fall upon it; if the back side of it be lined with Tinnfoil, that is, the leaf of Tinn, Silver, or or other metal; and thus Lookingglasses are made, whereof there is manifold use, besides what Ladies use them for: for with such kinde of Glasses many strange feats may be performed, so strange, that it hath betrayed some men to a suspicion of Magick and unlawfull Arts, who have used to shew some representations and apparitions, either in the air or otherwise, when ignorant people did not understand the Contrivances or art of them.