MARBLES, AND WHERE THEY COME FROM.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Issue 25, 12 November 1898, Page 8

MARBLES, AND WHERE THEY COME FROM.

In ancient times, long before the "Christian era, games were played with rna,rbles; not the beautiful, round, smooth, and polished ones of the present day, but with round, sea-worn stones .and pebbles. As to -which particular nation or people first manufactured stone and glass marbles nothing is known . About the first mention we have of them is that they were introduced into England from Holland as early as 1620. Germany is the place where most of them are made, a great deal of the work, such as moulding and painting, being done by poor little children. The common grey marble is made of a hard stone found near Coburg, in Saxony. This stone is first broken with a hammer into small square fragments. From one ' hundred to two hundred of these are ground at -one time in a mill which resembles a flour-mill. The lower stone remains at rest, and is provided with concentric circular grooves or furrows. The upper stone is of the same si^e as the lower, but revolves by means iof water-power. Little streams of water are allowed to flow into the furrows of the lower stone. The pressure of the •" runner " (the upper stone) on the pieces -xolls them over and over in all directions, untilin about a quarter of an hour they .are reduced to nearly perfect spheres. An establishment with three such mills <can turn, out over sixty thousand marbles .•& week, " Ihis 'Operation is for the coarser

What is larger by being cut at both ends ? — A ditch. When is a smoker like a sea bird ?—? — When he's a-puffin.

kinds of stone rnnrbles. In making the finer grades they aie afterwards placed in revolving wooden casks, in which are cylinders of hard stone, and the nnubles, by constant nibbing against one another and against the stone cylinder, become very smooth. To give them a high polish, the dust foinied in the last operation is taken out of the cask, which is then charged with fine eiueiy-poMcler. The very highest and last grade of polish is effected with " putty- powder." Marbles thus produced are known to the trade as "polished grey marbles." They also are stained different colours, and are then known as " coloured marbles." After the small grey znarbles come the largest-sized marbles or bowlers, one and a quarter inches in diameter ; the next grade of maibles includes the " china alleys," "burnt agate's, "glass agates," and, "jaspers," though with the trade these are all called maibles. China alleys Me painted in fine circles of various colours, or in small, broad rings, in which <?aso they are known as " bull's-eyes." Some of these me pressed in wooden moulds, after winch they are painted and baked. Next come the jaspers, consisting of glazed and unglazed white china handsomely maibled with blue. The " burnt agates " aie also china, and nighly glazed ; in colour they are a mixture of daik and light brown, -with splashes of white ; when green is introduced with the abo\e colours they are known as "moss agates " ; by the dealers they are known as " imitation agates." Then comes a veryJargo and beautiful class or variety of alleys known as " glass marbles." These range in size from two inches in diameter down to the small " peaAvees," and are of every conceivable combination of coloured glass. Some contain figures of animals and buds, and are known as " glass figure marbles." These are pressed in polished metal moulds, the parts of which fit so closely together that not the slightest trace of them is to be seen on the alleys, which is not the case with most of the pressed china alleys, for if one looks over a number of them sharply, he will detect a small ridge encircling some of them. The -" opals," " glimmers," " blood," " ruby," "spangled," "figured," and imitation cornelian all come in this class, and are all very beautiful. Gkkat Thoughts.

Apropos of Niagara, the following tale is told : " There," said a grandiloquent American, "in all your experience have you ever beheld a more stirring spectacle than yonder majestic volume of water crashing into that seething whirlpool below ?" " Ou, ay," replied the canny Scot, to whom he spoke, " I have seen finer eichts than that. Why, mon, -when I was at Dumfries I went to see a friend of mine, a gardener, and he showed me a far more wonderfu' sight — a peacock wi 1 a wooden leg!" Subscribt to the Advertiser. Id weekly.