GLASS THAT BOUNCES

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 45, 21 January 1928, Page 11

GLASS THAT BOUNCES

OLD SECRETS THAT WE HAVE LOST. SOME SECRET RE-DISCOVERIES. In Egyptian tombs have been found pieces of a brilliant scarlet non-trans-parent glass, the composition of which has puzzled generations of scientists. In the fifteenth century the the Chinese re-discovered the secret of this glass but again the recipe was lost to be refound by Sir Herbert Jackson, who showed some of it before the Royal 'lnstitution. . If the ancients were ignorant of Xrays and wireless, it is beyond doubt that they knew some things of which we are still ignorant. For ■ instance, they made paints and dyes that have lasted for oenturies without losing their original brilliancy, arid porcelain of a beauty we have never succeeded- in equalling. WORTH MORE THAN GOLD.

Yet there never was a time like the | present when so many secrets of past times have been brought to light. Lanolin, made from the wool of sheep, was the favourite ointment of the ancient Greeks more than two thousand years ago. The secret of its preparation was lost for centuries, but re-discovered in the nineteenth century, and now the making of lanolin is a great industry. ' 1 The Romans had a liquid which, when used on the inner walls of a new house, dried them at once, but that secret was lost more than seven cen-' turies ago. j It was re-discovered in 1908 by Inspector Simpson, of the Blackburn Fire Brigade, and when used on freshly plastered walls in new houses enables them to be papered at once. •„ Neri, whose book on glass was published in Florence in 1612, says, “In the time of the Emperor Tiberius was invented a way of making glass malleable, a thing afterwards lost, and to this day wholly unknown, for if such a thing were known without doubt it would be more esteemed for its beauty and incorruptibility than silver or gold.” Unknown to Neri, the Persians still had the old secret, for in 1610 the Shah of Persia sent to Philip 111. of Spain six glasses that would not break by being dropped, and of which the material was springy and flexible. But again the secret waß lost and remained unknown until last year when two Austrian scientists, after working for years, produced a glass which they call organic glass. It is transparent, will not scratch, yet a plate of it can be bent with th© fingers. A CONVICT’S DISCOVERY.

A small ball of this glass dropped on a stone floor rebounds like rubber. It would seem that this is the flexible glass of the ancients once more re--found. If this kind of glass can be produced economically, imagine what it will mean to motorists, who will have a perfectly transparent windscreen from which there is no danger in case of accident. ' .

The ancients used to shave themselves with bronze razors. They made a bronze or brass of tin and copper which they hardened so that it took an edge like steel. Some years ago a man named Dawson, a convict serving a sentenco in an American prison, rediscovered a method of hardening copper, and was released so that he might work on this invention for a syndicate. But it is understood that the Cost of his process was too great.