Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1936. THE AGE OF GLASS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 183, 4 July 1936, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1936. THE AGE OF GLASS.

We are in the glass age, but few of us realise it. The scientists in their laboratories have worked wonders and have produced new glass for which novel uses have been found. A new glass, said to be half as strong as steel and three times as elastic, is produced by blasting cold air over glass tiiat is almost molten. Two men can stand on a windshield without breaking it. The glass will bend under the weight and Alien return to its normal position afterwards. In a demonstration in England, a huge pane of one-inch glass supported a three-ton truck. Another innovation with fascinating possibilities is a heat-absorb-ing window-pane that cuts out <0 per cent, of the heat rays from the sun. It filters out the infrared rays passed by ordinary panes, and since in summer more than 50 per cent, of the sun’s rays are infra-red, the new glass is expected to clip air-conditioning bills by a large amount. In railway carriages, refrigerating plants, store windows and homes it may have a wide application. Another new glass transmits heat rays, but cuts off light rays. An eighth of an inch thick, it is designed for therapeutic work in hospitals. So effective is it that heat, coming through the glass will light tissue paper without the holder being able to see the source of the rays. One glass manufacturing company in the United States receives some curious orders almost every week. They range from requests for polished plates for sun-power motors to an insulated seven-foot tube of glass in which a patient can be given treatment with high frequency radio waves.

New glasses for special purposes are being steadily developed, and as a result there are now being marketed glass wool, glass bricks, glass blackboards, glass nuts and bolts that resist the action of acid, and even glass sparking-plugs for motor-cars. The latter having a core of heat resisting glass are designed to let the motorist see the spark and tell if the plug is functioning properly. Glass wallpaper is also supplied in standard rolls. It is formed of fine threads of coloiired glass placed on a paper backing, the hues blending together in novel and brilliant effects. One recent innovation in glass tubing is a multibore product for use in electric signs. As many as three or four chattels'run side by side in the tube to permit different coloured gases to glow in close proximity for novel display etfects. The fact that glass can be pulled out into the finest threads has given it new functions to perform. For years surveyors have had trouble with the sight wires of their transets. Human hairs and spiders’ webs were tried but they were affected by moisture. Recently threads of glass pulled so fine they are barely visible have been found adapted to the work. Glass wool made of masses of such thread is employed in insula-

tion work, and in taking dust from conditioned air. A new application is reducin'* the number of runs in silk stockings. The wooden bobbins in common use, experiments revealed, absorb some of the natural waves from the silk thread and thus increase its brittleness. Glass bobbins overcome this difficulty.