"Each of these men has a work-hole of the furnace to himself, so that he may heat his material any time he needs to do so. The staging gives him room to swing his heavy mass of glass as he blows it, and the pit in the floor, which is about ten feet deep, furnishes space for the big cylinder to run out, or grow longer, as he blows. The gathering for sheet glass is done much as was that for the smaller pieces. The gatherer collects a lump on his pipe, cools it a little, and collects more until he has enough. He then rests it on one of those wooden blocks such as you see over there; the block is hollowed out so to let the blower expand the glass to the diameter he wants it." "But I should think the block would burn when the hot glass is forced inside it." "It would if it were not first sprinkled with water. Sometimes hollow metal blocks are used instead. In that case water passes through to keep them cool, and they are dusted over with charcoal to keep them from sticking, and from scratching the glass. After a sufficiently large mass of glass has been gathered and reheated to a workable condition the blower begins his task. First he swings the great red-hot lump about so that it will get longer. His aim is to make a long cylinder and into it he must blow constantly in order to keep it full of air. Watch that man now at work. See how deft he is, and how strong. The even thickness of the glass, and the uniformity of its size, depend entirely upon his skill. If he finds the cylinder running out too fast, or in other words getting too long, he shifts it up over his head, always taking care, however, to keep it upright." Jean watched. How rapidly the man worked with the great mass on his blow-pipe! Now he blew it far down into the pit beneath, where it hung like a mighty, elongated soap-bubble; now he swung it to and fro; now lifted it above his head. And all the time he was blowing into it blasts of air from his powerful lungs. "The cylinder doesn't seem to get any bigger round," observed Jean at last. "No. Its diameter was fixed at the beginning by the wooden block. That settles its size once and for all; it is the length and thickness of the cylinder which are governed by the blower. Do you realize how strong a man has to be to wield such a weight as that lump of metal? It is no easy matter. Luckily he can suspend it against that wooden rest if he gets too tired. In England they use a sort of iron frame called an _Iron Man_ to relieve the blower of the weight of the glass and the device was also used at one time in Belgium; but the Belgian workmen gradually did away with it." For a long time the two children stood there fascinated by the skill of the blowers. "Suppose we go on now and see the rest of the process," suggested Giusippe, a little unwillingly. "I could watch these men all day, but we have much to do, and if we do not hurry we shall not get through."