The Coming Age of Glass.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue VIII, 24 August 1901, Page 365

The Coming Age of Glass.

If the visions of a French savant are realised, we shall all be living in glass houses before very long, according to the “Express.” The foundation and walls will be constructed of a variety of glass recently invented called “stone glass,” which has already successfully withstood the severest tests. The walls will be built of glass, held together by angle irons, so as to permit of a hollow space through which pipes could pass (the pipes themselves being glass-work) conveying hot air,

hot and cold water, gas, electric wires, drains, and everything needed for the health and comfort of the inhabitants. Stairs and balustrades, ceilings, and wall decorations, mantelpieces ami fireplaces, would all be constructed of glass. Our chairs and tables, in the new glass age, will be made of vitrified material, toughened to the strength of oak and mahogany. Our cooking utensils, our plates and cups and saucers, will be made of the same substance. Even our knives and forks will have glass handles, if not glass blades. The new glass house will be abso-

lately clean, and practically indestructible. The whole of its surface can be washed from the top storey to the basement without a trace of humidity being left. Dust cannot collect on its polished face, and the spider will find no place on which to hang its cobwebs. They have already begun to pave the streets of Paris with glass, and it is found that the substance, while practically indestructible, is admirably suited to the feet of both men and beasts; and, as it neither holds nor makes any dirt, it is absurdly easy to clean. Its only fault is that it somewhat increases the noise of the trallic. but even ibis might by and by be over-

come. Perhaps it might be possible, in connection with one of the many projected exhibitions, to construct on a modest but sutlieient scale a dwelling of the kind M. llenrivaux describes. People would then be able to experience the actual sensation of walking along glass floors, of climbing a glass staircase, of being surrounded by glass walls, of sitting on glass chairs at glass tables, drinking tea out of glass cups, and stirring if with glass teaspoons. How far this could be accomplished with due avoidance of monotony if is hard to say.