GLASS IN THE NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 19

GLASS IN THE NEWS

REVOLUTIONS BY AMERICA

TUNNELS, POLES, AND PAVEMENTS

"A comparatively hard and brittle substance having no visible crystalline structure." That, according to the encyclopaedia, is glass, the substance which will give its name to our age precisely as iron gave its' name to the age that went before it, states an exchange. Unobtrusively, almost without our knowing it, the glass age has come into being, nearly 3000 years after the first glass was made in ancient Thebes. Now life without glass would be unthinkable, and it is even taking the place formerly held in our world by iron and steel. America is taking the lead in this glass revolution, although architects claim that the Crystal Palace was the first building to point the way to the glass age. Now, in New York, the new tunnel under the Hudson Eiver is to be lined with glass, and American scientists prophesy that the New York World's Fair of 1939 will proclaim to the whole world the existence of the glass age. GLASS TELEGRAPH POLES. In America they are even building houses and factories of glass bricks, and in the near future, it is claimed, such glass bricks will be used for building in Australia. The cinema, radio, television—without glass none of these would have been feasible. One could go on indefinitely with this

list, lor all scientific experiments depend on glass. Glass alone has the magic qualities of transparency^ and durability which enable the scientist to watch reactions which would otherwise be hidden from view, to measure minute quantities of liquids and gases, because glass apparatus enables him to see.

In Germany, glass telegraph poles are manufactured near Frankfort. The glass mass of which the poles are made is strengthened by the intertwining of wire threads. It is claimed that the poles can withstand any atmospheric conditions. In Germany, too, glass water pipes have been devised. They are covered with asphalt to prevent fracture, but they resist the acids, alkalis and gases beneath the surface of the ground.

I Glass pavements are already a fact in Lyons. They are more durable than stone and less liable to conduct heat. The blocks are so carefully fitted that no water may pass between them. In Colorado, the bridge which spans the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, which is half a mile high, has a floor of glass half an inch thick set in a steel framework. AS A FABRIC. Glass as a. fabric for dresses is no new thing. But when the fine glass fabric, shimmering like silk, tinted and delicate, dictates the direction fashion is to take in Paris, when the fabric is made into curtains, tablecloths, and napkins, not to mention men's ties, a revolution in the textile industry seems to be threatened. Glass takes a good deal of wearing out. There is no more striking illustration of this than the Russian spun glass used for making dresses. Shredded and spun from the fibre of a Siberian filamentous stone, it is soft and supple, and so durable that it never wears out. Moreover, it needs no

washing. Throw the dirty garment into the fire, and it is 'clean and almost ready for wear again.

As far back as the eighteenth century, it seems that manufacturers had some vague knowledge of the age of glass that was to come, for a glass rolling-pin or a glass walking-stick made at that time will still fetch a lot of money today. People who live in glass houses of the future will be able to throw stones, as many stones as they like, for this glass will not break.