receive it. The blower drops the cylinder of glass into a mold, which is
held open for its reception by yet another man; the mold snaps shut; the
blower applies his mouth to the end of the blowpipe; a quick puff,
accompanied by the drawing away of the wand, blows the glass to shape in
the mold and leaves a thin bubble of glass protruding above. The mold is
opened; the shaped bottle, still faintly glowing, is withdrawn with a
pair of asbestos-lined pincers, and passed to a man who chips off the
bubble on a rough strip of steel, after which he gives the bottle to one
who sits guarding a tiny furnace in which oil sprayed under pressure
roars and flares. The rough neck of the bottle goes into the flame; the
raw edges left when the bubble was chipped off are smoothed away by the
heat; the neck undergoes a final polishing and shaping twirl in the jaws
of a steel instrument, and the bottle is laid on a little shelf to be
carried away. It is shaped, but not finished.

The glass must not be cooled too quickly, lest it be brittle. It must be
annealed--cooled slowly--in order to withstand the rough usage to which
it is to be subjected. The annealing process takes place in a long,
brick tunnel, heated at one end, and gradually cooling to atmospheric
temperature at the other. The bottles are placed on a moving platform,
which slowly carries them from the heated end to the cool end. The
process takes about thirty hours. At the cool end of the annealing
furnace the bottle is met by the packers and is made ready for shipment.
These annealing furnaces are called "lehrs" or "leers"--either spelling
is correct--and the most searching inquiry failed to discover the reason
for the name. They have always been called that, and probably always
will be.

In the hand-blowing process six men are needed to make one bottle.
There must be a gatherer to draw the glass from the furnace; a blower; a