furnace. At the front of the furnace, instead of doors or mouths, is a
revolving pan, kept level full with the molten glass. Outside the
furnace revolves a huge machine with ten arms, each of which carries its
own mold and blowpipe. As each arm passes over the pan in the furnace
the proper amount of glass is sucked into the mold by vacuum; the bottle
is blown and shaped in the course of one revolution, and the mold,
opening, drops the finished bottle into a rack which carries it to the
lehr on a belt. It passes thru the lehr to the packers; and as each rack
is emptied of its bottles the packers place it again on the belt, which
carries it up to the machine, where it collects its cargo of hot bottles
and conducts it again thru the lehr. The entire plant--mixing, feeding,
actually making the bottles, delivery to the lehr, and packing--is
synchronized exactly. Men unload the cars of sand--men pack the bottles.
The intermediate period is entirely mechanical. The plant itself is as
well lighted and ventilated as a department store, and except in the
immediate vicinity of the furnace there is no heat felt above the daily
temperature. The machines average well over a bottle a second, and by an
exceedingly clever arrangement of electrical recording appliances an
accurate record of the output of each machine, as well as the
temperatures of the furnaces and lehrs, is kept in the offices of the
company. The entire equipment is of the most modern, from the boilers
and motors in the power-plant and producer-gas-plant to the packing
platforms. In addition, the plant boasts a complete machine shop where
all the molds are made and the machines repaired.

It is a far cry from human lung-power to the super-efficient machinery
of the new plants; but it is the logical progress of human events,
applying to every product of man's hands, from battleships to--bottles.

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