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Reminiscences
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the atmosphere beyond the power of man to direct, but exercises a power to affect the heat of the furnace acting for good or for evil,) much responsibility rests upon the furnace-tenders; constant care on their part is required. A slight neglect affects the quality of the glass. A check upon the furnace in founding-time will spoil every pot of metal for the best work. Over-heat, too, will destroy the pots, and the entire weekly melt will be launched into the cave, at a loss of several thousand dollars. Even with the utmost care, a rush of air will not uncommonly pass through the furnace and destroy one or more pots in a minute's space. And when the furnace has yielded a full melt, and is ready for work, many evils are at hand, and among the ever-jarring materials of a glass-house, some one becomes adverse to a full week's work; vigilance is not always the price of success.
    Again: no branch of mechanical labor possesses more of attraction for the eye of the stranger or the curious, than is to be witnessed in a glass-house in full play. The crowded and bee-like movements of the workmen, with irons and hot metal, yet each, like the spheres of his own orbit, presents a scene apparently of inextricable confusion.