Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/123

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and its Green Border-Land.
109

showing to what uses and to what brilliant solidities the waste paper, often floating on the wind, may be turned. The Glass Manufacture may also be called a speciality among the manifold productions of Birmingham. Two celebrated establishments, expanded to vast capacities by Messrs. Osler and the Messrs. Chance respectively, have carried the manufacture to wonderful perfection. The several international exhibitions that have taken place within the last sixteen years have made the public generally acquainted with the achievements of artistic mechanism and skilled labour which have distinguished different communities. At the Great Exhibition of 1851, it was seen, as never before, what Birmingham could do in the manufacture of glass. If the vote were taken of the million of different countries who saw what that first Crystal Palace contained, as to the most impressive, attractive, and best-remembered object, a majority would say that it was Osler's Crystal Fountain. It was a magnificent centre-piece for all the splendid surroundings of art and industry within those walls. It seemed a gorgeous stalactite from that concave sea of glass which gave translucent roofage to the great spectacle of human skill and toil. But that fairy fountain was only the beginning of productions which have excited equal admiration. One of the master-pieces of the