Electrical glass ware consumption is very large

The consumption of glass in electrical work is very large, and of late years has led to many innovations. At one time it was confined chiefly to the large disks used in frictional machines, the jars for telegraph batteries and the insulators. Now it is extensively employed for the jars of storage batteries, switches, conduit tubing, the bulbs of incandescent lamps, the globes of arc lights and many other purposes. Some of the storage batteries of modern times are large enough for baths, and it can be readily be conceived that the glass must be well made for such work. Not long ago the bulbs of incandescent lamps were blown at the factories, but now the lamp works buy them in barrels, just like so many oranges, and the molded glass is said to answer admirably. A recent novelty has been the use of molded bulbs on which some pattern is imprinted. The effect is very pretty, and is cheaply obtained, as hitherto this could only be obtained by putting over the ordinary bulf a case or shade of cut or molded glass, which, of course, lessened the light-giving value of the lamp. In arc lighting the globes remain much the same as when the lamps were introduced fifteen years ago, except that attempts are made to use panes instead of one perfect globe. The lenses and other glass for American search lights have been imported until lately, but are now being made of excellent quality in this country.