The implements used by the glass-blower and his assistants for this work are few and simple. The largest item is the glass-blower’s bench or chair, which is simply a rough wooden bench provided with two projecting side-rails or arms. When finishing a piece of work the blower sits on this bench, and the pipe lies across the two rails in front of him in such a position that by rolling it backwards and forwards along the rails he can readily keep the pipe in gentle rotation. In addition to the ordinary blower’s pipe and a “pontil” or rod for attaching small quantities of glass whereby the piece in hand can be held, the only other tools used by the blower are a number of shears and pincers of various shapes which serve for cutting off, pressing in, and distending the glass as required, a flat board and a stone or metal plat or “marver” being also used for the purpose of moulding the glass. As already indicated, the first step in the production of such an object as a tumbler consists in gathering a suitable quantity of glass on the pipe and blowing it into a small bulb. This bulb is blown out to the proper size and is then elongated by gently swinging the pipe. The next step is the flattening of the lower end of the bulb by gently pressing it on the “marver” or flat plate provided for such purposes; in this way the flat bottom of the glass is formed, and the bulb now has the shape of the finished glass, but remains attached to the pipe by a shoulder and neck. The earliest practice was to separate the tumbler from the pipe at such a point as to leave the tumbler of the correct length, the remaining operation consisting in holding the glass, first fixed to a pontil for the purpose, into the furnace so as to heat the broken edge; this edge was thereby rounded off, and the brim of the glass could be widened or otherwise shaped by rotating the glass or pressing it in or out by the aid of pieces of wood. In modern practice, however, this is not usual, the glass being separated from the pipe well above the shoulder and annealed in this shape. Subsequently the glass is finished in a trimming room or workshop by being cut off at the desired point and having the rough edge rounded off by the aid of a blowpipe flame. The cutting-off operation is carried out in a great variety of ways, the most usual being by the action of heat applied locally and suddenly, either by the aid of specially-shaped flat blowpipe flames or by an electrically-heated wire. Machines for carrying out this operation, as well as the subsequent rounding of the edge automatically, are in use, but the latter process is sometimes replaced by slightly grinding and polishing the edges. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--Sectional diagram of the evolution of a tumbler.]