the time being stand just as it was, without the additional
information, because it gives a picture of how such things crop up and
of the way in which such investigations may be made, and of how useful
and pleasant they may be.

Here then let us have--

A LITTLE DISSERTATION UPON CUTTING.

Through the agent for the wheel-cutter in England I communicated with
the maker and inventor in America, and told him of our difficulties and
perplexities over here, and chiefly with regard to two points. First,
the awkwardness of the handle, which causes the glaziers here to use the
tool bound round with wadding, or enclosed in a bit of india-rubber
pipe; and, secondly, the bluntness of the "jaws" which hold the wheel,
and which must be ground down (and are in universal practice ground
down), before the tool can be sharpened.

His reply called attention to a number of different patterns of handle,
the existence of which, I think, is not generally known, in England at
any rate, and some of which seem to more or less meet the difficulties
we experience, most of them also being made with malleable iron handles,
so that fresh cutting-wheels can be inserted in the same handle. His
letter also entered into the question of the actual dynamics of
"cutting," maintaining, I think rightly, that a "cut" is made by the
edge of the wheel (this not being very sharp) forcing the particles of
the glass down into the mass of it by pressure.

With regard to the old-fashioned pattern of tool which we chiefly use in
this country, the very sufficient explanation is that they continue to
make it because we continue to demand it, a circumstance which, as he
declares, is a mystery to the inventor himself! Nevertheless, as we do
so, and, in spite of the variety of newer tools on the market, still go
on grinding down the jaws of our favourite, and wrapping round the
handle with cotton-wool, let us try and put this matter straight, and
compare our requirements with the advantages offered us.

There are three chief points to be cleared up. (1) The actual nature of
a "cut" in glass; (2) the question of sharpening the tool and grinding
down of the jaws to do so; and (3) the "mystery" of our preference for a
particular tool, although we all confess its awkwardness by the means we
take to modify it.

(1) With regard, then, to the nature of a "cut" in glass I am disposed
entirely to agree with the theory put forward by the inventor of the
wheel, which an ex