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Reminiscences
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APPENDIX.
RECEIPTS, ETC.
There are plenty of receipts for the composition
of flint or crystal glass, but no mixture that we know can secure a
uniform shade in each pot. The component parts of glass are well known,
and the mixer's sure guide is to watch the effect of heat on each pot, for
he soon finds the mixture that gives good color in one pot will in another
in the same furnace prove bad. If he possesses sufficient knowledge of
the chemical causes, he can correct the evil.
Among the valuable receipts for rich colors is
the following, for RUBY GLASS,
which takes the lead both in cost and richness:--
Take one ounce of pure gold; dissolve in a glass
vessel two ounces pure sal ammoniac acid, and five ounces of pure nitric
acid, which will take six to seven days; drop in at a time say one twentieth
part of the gold, and so on until the ounce of gold is all dissolved. This
will require twenty-four hours. Evaporate the solution to dryness. Then
prepare in a glass vessel six ounces pure nitric acid, two ounces muriatic
acid, and one ounce of highest proof alcohol; mix them well together, and
drop in pure grained tin a bit at a time, but beware of the fumes.
Stir it well with a glass rod; dilute the solution with eighty times its
bulk of distilled water; then take the prepared gold, dissolved in a quart
of distilled
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