around another mold to the gatherer. Meanwhile a nozzle has snapped down
over the first mold, shaping the neck of the bottle, and beginning the
blowing. As the mold comes to a point diametrically opposite the furnace
door it opens again, and a handler takes the blank, as the bottle is
called at this stage, and places it in a mold on the second revolving
platform. This mold closes and compressed air blows out the bottle as
the platform revolves. As the mold comes around to the handler again it
opens and the handler takes out the finished bottle, replacing it with a
new blank drawn from the mold on the first platform. This operation
necessitates only three men--a gatherer, a handler, and a carrier-off.
It is also much faster than the old method--an average of about forty
bottles per minute as against barely twenty.

A newer development of this machine does away with the gatherer. A long
rod of refractory clay is given a churning movement in the mouth of the
furnace, forcing the molten glass thru a tube. As enough glass for one
bottle appears at the mouth of the tube a knife cuts the mass and the
blob of glass falls into a trough which conveys it to the blank mold. By
an ingenious device the same trough is made to feed three or four
machines at one time. As many as fifty bottles a minute can be turned
out by this combination blowing machine and feeder.

But the apotheosis of bottle-making is to be seen in another factory in
the south Jersey district. Here it is the boast of the superintendents
that from the time the sand goes out of the freight cars in which it is
brought to the plant till the finished bottle is taken by the packer, no
human hand touches the product; and their statement is amply confirmed
by a trip thru the plant. The sand, coloring matter and cullet are in
separate bins; an electrical conveyor takes enough of each for a batch
to a mixing machine; from there the batch goes on a long belt to the