A _World_ reporter has lately visited the works in Brooklyn where the
manufacture of the La Bastie toughened glass is now in active
progress. The manufacturer states that, in June last, his factory was
destroyed by fire, and the introduction of the glass into our markets
has for that reason been delayed. Only one kind of goods, lamp
chimneys, are now made, and the process is as follows: A workman,
having in his hand a pole about eight feet long, with a knob on the
end of the size of a lamp burner, fits a chimney on the knob and
plunges it into the flame of a furnace. He with-draws it twice or
thrice that it may not heat too quickly, turning the pole rapidly the
while, and when the glass reaches a red heat quickly shoots it into
one of a dozen small baths fixed on a revolving table, and seizes
another chimney. A boy keeps the revolving table always in position,
and as the chimneys come around to him, having been the proper time in
the bath, he takes them out to be dried, sorted, cleaned, and packed.
The bath has to be of just the right temperature, as, if it be too hot
or too cold, the chimneys are liable to explode. In either case the
process of annealing is imperfect. By working the tables at a certain
rate, the baths are kept at the right temperature by the immersion of
the red hot glass. Oil or tallow is used in the bath. Any greasy
substance will do, though tallow has proved most satisfactory.
M. De la Chapelle, the manufacturer, states that he has already sold
$150,000 worth of the chimneys. The toughened chimneys are about 60
per cent dearer than those of ordinary glass. The factory is in
Delavan street, Brooklyn, N.Y.
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