been to describe each
operation in such detail that a beginner can follow the process without
help and, with practice, attain satisfactory results. It is, however,
much easier to perform any of the operations described, after seeing
some one else perform it correctly; since the temperature, the exact
time to begin blowing the glass, and many other little details are very
difficult to obtain from a description.

It has not been thought worth while to describe the process of making
stopcocks, thermometers, vacuum tubes, etc., as such things can be
purchased more cheaply and of much better quality than any amateur can
make unless he is willing to spend a very large amount of time in
practice. For similar reasons the manipulation of quartz glass has been
omitted.

The author will be grateful for all suggestions and criticisms tending
to improve the methods presented. If some of them appear to be given in
excessive detail, the reader will remember that many things which are
obvious to the experienced worker are not so to the beginner, and that
it is the little details in the manipulation which often spell success
or failure in glass-blowing.

F. C. F.

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.,
_January, 1914._

CONTENTS

PAGE

Preface v

CHAPTER I

MATERIALS AND APPARATUS 1

Varieties and defects of glass--Devitrification--Annealing
glass--Blowpipe and bellows--Light--Arrangement of exercises.

CHAPTER II

GENERAL OPERATIONS 7

Cutting, bending, constricting and flanging the tubing--Methods
of rotation and blowing.

CHAPTER III

ELEMENTARY EXERCISES 16

Joining two pieces of tubing of the same diameter--The "tee"
tube--Joining two tubes of different diameters--Blowing bulbs.

CHAPTER IV

ADVANCED EXERCISES 35

Sealing a tube through another tube: The gas-washing tube, suction
pump, and Kjeldahl trap.

CHAPTER V

MODIFIED METHODS AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS 43

Capillary tubing--Glass rod--Mending stopcocks--Closed circuits of