It is much to be wished that those engaged in this branch of art and manufacture, and who have some knowledge of chemistry, would turn their attention to getting a better and more perfect method of making coloured pot-metal glass. I have been engaged for some time, and still am engaged, in experiments to effect this object. But inasmuch as my engagements are very numerous, and I cannot give the proper time to it I desire, I therefore take the liberty of suggesting to others the ways in which I am working, that they may be able to arrive at good results more speedily probably than I shall be able to do. If sulphate of copper be mixed with silicate of potash, silicate of copper will be precipitated. Now, if this be carefully washed and dried, it will be a silicate of a definite composition, and I propose to use such silicates as these with ordinary glass mixtures, in order to impart the particular colour which the oxide employed has been already described as giving to the glass. Silicate of manganese is prepared in a similar way to the silicate of copper; silicate of cobalt, and other silicates, can be used as staining materials for colouring glass. These mixed in due proportion would give tints, and would, I do not feel the slightest doubt, produce colours with much greater certainty than they are now produced, and tints hitherto unknown could be made to the great benefit of the glass-painter. FURNITURE AND WOODWORK. BY J. H. POLLEN, M.A., South Kensington Museum. I propose in the following pages to give some account of the materials used in making furniture, and of the arts applied to its decoration. From the earliest ages of society, when men moved about in tribes, they had in their tents of camels' hair simple necessaries, such as their wants required. Before people were gathered into distinct nations, or cities built with walls and gates, there were still certain human wants that must needs be supplied; and the objects that were needed to enable mankind to live with convenience and decency were found in their furniture. To this very day we may see Arab tribes wandering over sunny deserts, seeking pasturage, sowing here and there an acre of wheat or barley, or gathering dates. Their camels and dromedaries are their waggons, their horses are their friends, their families and those of others that make up their tribe are their only nationality. Yet they furnish in some sort the temporary homes which they shift from one spring of water to another, as the patches of grass or grain grow up and ripen. Their chief wants are, a cloth strained over three staves to make a house, mats or carpets to lie on, a few bowls to cook in, saddles of wood, and a few baskets or chests, made of light sticks fastened together.