and build up the largest communities in the shortest time. The means employed were eminently socialistic. The business of town "booming" was intrusted to the town corporation itself, instead of being left to private effort. The town undertook the work of exploration, drilling the wells, and finally of supplying free gas to all manufacturing concerns which would settle within the town limits. Tiffin has been particularly active in these corporate ventures. In about one year it spent two hundred thousand dollars in the work of development, and, besides the pledge of free gas, furnished fifty thousand dollars to secure a large glass factory. It was a somewhat daring policy, but it succeeded so well that other towns soon followed its example. Where they had no money to give, they gave free gas and ten-acre lots. Thus solicited, the glass industry became a willing immigrant and invaded the State in generous proportions. This phase forms indeed a curious chapter in our industrial history, and is a strong contrast to the mortal struggles of our earlier glass-makers.

The industry had a very similar history in Indiana, though on a less extended scale and at a somewhat later period. The State was early identified with the plate-glass manufacture, but it was not until the development of natural gas that it took a prominent place. The whole southeastern part of Indiana is underlaid by the Trenton limestone, and is a highly productive gas territory. Its history begins with the drilling of the Kokomo well in the fall of 1886. This gave a daily output of two million cubic feet, and was soon followed by others yielding six and seven million feet. Throughout the entire State the work of exploration proceeded with astonishing rapidity. Few districts, indeed, have been so thoroughly exploited. It is now one of the three chief gasproducing areas in the United States, and has attracted a proportionate number of glass factories.

Certain branches of the industry, such as the manufacture of plate glass, can hardly be said to belong to any State, for it has shown itself decidedly peripatetic. The first attempts were probably those made at Cheshire, Mass., in 1852-'5. After an unprofitable run of six months, the works were removed to Brooklyn, N. Y. Here there was more experimenting and more loss. The enterprise was abandoned in 1856. This same year a second attempt was made at Lenox, Mass. After some initial difficulties and failures the works got successfully under way and continued to manufacture rough plate until the close of the war. A new company was then formed and undertook the production of polished plate. A machine which had been invented to grind and polish marble was found to do equally good work on glass, and was put into operation with excellent results. In a modified form it is still employed, both in this country and in Europe. The com

pany prospered for some time, but through unwise management finally failed. But the American plate-glass industry, though apparently doomed to suffer severe reverses, was not doomed to die. In 1869, two years before the Lenox failure, a carefully designed plant was put into operation at New Albany, Ind., by Mr. John B. Ford. He imported the first grinding and polishing machinery from England. Although these works have been operated continuously ever since then, and are now reasonably successful, they had to run the gantlet of early reverses. Their owner, Mr. W. C. De Pauw, stated before the tariff commission that up to 1879 no money was made at his own works, and that he believed other

manufacturers of plate glass in America had had a similar experience. The industry up to that year seems indeed to have been one succession of financial disasters. Yet these failures do not appear to have discouraged their promoters. Between 1870 and 1875 Mr. Ford established other works at Jeffersonville, Ind., and at Louisville, Ky. About the same time a large plant was also built at St. Louis, and, like the others, was equipped with English machinery. It was at that time the largest factory in the United States. The industry was slow in establishing itself at Pittsburg, but it has since reached its greatest development in that district. The Pittsburg Plate Glass Company began operations in 1883, their first factory being at Creighton. The monthly output was about

40,000 square feet, or nearly an acre of plate glass. The demand for the glass increased so rapidly that two years later, in 1885, a second plant was built at Tarentum. Meanwhile the methods of manufacture at Creighton had been so far improved that the joint output of the two factories was 280,000 feet per month, or between six and seven acres of polished plate. In another two years the same company built a third factory at Ford City, with a capacity of 200,000 feet per month. At the present time these works are being still further enlarged, and will soon have more than twice their original capacity. The growth of the enterprise has been remarkable. It is doubtful whether any other industry could show a parallel development. At the present time the annual output is in the neighborhood of a third of a square mile of polished plate. That means a great deal of sunshine for somebody.

These American plate-glass works compare very favorably in equipment and management with the more historic establishments of Saint Gobain and Ravenshead. The native product, we believe, is now quite equal to the foreign, and promises sooner or later to so far discourage importation as to be itself exported. It is pleasant, too, to record that, after so many disasters, this branch of glass-making is at the present moment the most flourishing of all departments of the industry. It is the one in which the American genius for mechanics has had the greatest scope. Few of the operations are performed by hand. These are precisely the conditions under which America can compete most successfully with the Old World, and feel the least disadvantage from her more expensive labor market. This thoroughness of organization has had its effect upon the price. Plate glass is today so cheap that, as some one has said, it may be used in farmhouses, though it should perhaps be added that in this case the farm itself must in times past have been rather profitable. It is, at any rate, no longer exclusively the window glass of the rich. This widening of the market has made possible the present success of the industry. When the price becomes so low that we can afford to use twice as many acres of plate glass as we now allow ourselves we may expect a still greater success. At the present time the tendency is decidedly toward largely increased production. There are now eight plants in full operation, and four more in course of construction, which will probably be under way during the early part of the year. The market is large enough for all, though there is naturally a considerable rivalry between the different factories. This shows itself, among other ways, in the effort to outdo one another in the size of the plate produced. The largest yet turned out is one, we believe, made by the Diamond Glass Company at Kokomo, Ind., which measures 153 by 212

inches. It is almost needless to say that the sole fuel used in all these works is natural gas. It has, indeed, made possible their large extension and success. At Ford City alone contracts were recently given for the drilling of seven wells at the same time.

In the second producer of glass in the United States, New Jersey, there has also been a continuity of operation not met with elsewhere. The early factories of Salem County and at Glassboro were the nucleus of a large and thriving glass settlement. The very favorable natural conditions early made the State the center of the bottle trade. Many of the works established during the first half of the century went out of existence after a few years'

more or less successful run. But others, such as the works established at Millville in 1822, continue among the most important in the State. The introduction of anthracite as a fuel does not seem to have been made until 1856, though even at the present time wood is largely used in the annealing ovens. The weakest element in the New Jersey glass industry lies right here, in her deficient fuel. With various town corporations in Ohio and elsewhere offering natural gas free to glass-producers, the competition is very unequal, for the manufacture of bottles requires no great purity in the sand and no very special skill in the blower. Yet this rivalry appears to have been successfully met, for there has been during recent years a marked increase in the output of