I remembered reading something about this on the board and think I found at least one of the discussions here
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,24901.msg138402.html#msg138402although I remembered reading another thread about antique glass being made in ? (maybe East Anglia?). There was some discussion about sand I
thought on that?
Anyway I came across this piece in a book written in 1852 Dodd, The Curiosities of Industry and the Applied Sciences.
On page 9 of that edition it says (please excuse the typos, I cut and pasted from the only edition that let me cut and paste and so the typos are those that appear in that online form):
'
If we take, for instance, Mr. Apsley Pellatt's very interesting group of glass materials at the Exliibition, we find tlie silex in the fonns of washed and burnt sand, the alkali in the form of carbonate of potash, and the oxides of lead and manganese; and three such series " silex, alkali, and oxides " would similarly have been seen in an earlier collection. It is in tlie minor details of each series tliat improvements have been and are now being sought. For instance. How can silex be obtained in greatest purity? is a question important to the glass-maker. Sand is, next to flint, tlie most familiar fonn in which silex is presented to us. Sand from Lynn, from St. Helen's, from Leighton Buzzard, and from many other places, is employed by glass makers; Isle of Wight sand is almost pure silex ; sand lately brought from Wenham Lake (the remarkable ice depot) has been found equally pure; and stmd from Australia has been sho^vii to be so peculiarly Avell fitted for the production of the finest glass, that it has been deemed commercially advantageous to freight vessels witli this substance alone. Flints and hard rocks, supposed to be rich in siliceous matter, have been tried in a groimd state; but no foim of silica has been found suitable except that which is in sandy particles.
But even here we have a striking fact. An English vessel, free to cany any cargo which presents itself, brings common sea-sand a distance of sixteen thousand miles from Australia to England, in order that the glass-maker may have a fitting siliceous material for his manufacture; and we may be quite certain that this would not be done unless the manufacturers were willing to pay an adequate price for this humble import.'
Quite astonishing that it might have been shipped from Australia!
edited to add - equally astonishing is the mention of Wenham Lake as a 'recent' source of sand as Wikipedia says this of Wenham Lake:
'Wenham Lake (224 acres) is a lake located in Wenham and Beverly, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. In the 19th century the lake was famous for its ice, harvested and transported by ship throughout the world. It was reputed to be Queen Victoria's favorite.'
I'm shocked that anyone could think of transporting 'ice', or sand even for that matter.
m
Topic: The sand used in glass in the UK in ye olden days - where did the sand come from (Read 1753 times)
