The Bakerian lecture. On the manufacture of glass for optical purposes

As an introduction to his paper, the author gives a short account of the circumstances which have led to the present inquiry. He states the difficulties that exist in procuring glass sufficiently homogeneous to answer the purposes of the optician, and adverts to the efforts made by Guinand and by Fraunhofer to overcome them. As the art was still imperfectly known in this country, the President of the Royal Society in the year 1824 suggested the appointment of a committee, whose labours were facilitated by the Government removing the restrictions imposed by the excise laws to experiments on glass, and also undertaking to bear all the expenses of the inquiry, as long as it held out a reasonable expectation of ultimate success. An experimental glass-house was at first erected on the premises of Messrs. Pellatt and Green, at the Falcon Glass-works; but Mr. Faraday being unable to conduct them at that distance from his own residence, the President and Council of the Royal Society obtained leave of the President and Managers of the Royal Institution to erect an other experimental furnace for continuing the investigation on their premises. The author being intrusted with the immediate superintendence of the experimental part of the manufacture of the glass, conceives it to he his especial duty, at the present stage of the inquiry, to give an account of what has been done in his department; for although the investigation is still far from being completed, yet he trusts that a decided step has now been made in the manufacture of glass for optical purposes; and that it is due to the Society, as well as to the Government, to render an account of the results hitherto obtained.