Science: New Glass

The report that school authorities in smoke-hung Birmingham, Eng., had investigated the hygienic qualities of window glass constructed to permit the passage of the ultraviolet rays of sunlight and found this glass so far superior to common panes that they had ordered it installed in all Birmingham schools (TIME, Oct. 18), had prime interest for U. S.* glass manufacturers. The Corning Glass Works (Corning, N. Y.), family company of U. S. Ambassador to Great Britain, Alanson B. Houghton, swiftly called attention (see LETTERS) to its recent perfection of a glass, soon to be produced commercially, which transmits 86% of sunlight’s ultraviolet content. Hitherto, 35% was the highest transmission coefficient of commercial glasses in the U. S.

The perfect transmitter for ultraviolet rays was found by science in fused quartz glass. But fused quartz is too expensive to put in school windows for little boys to knock baseballs through. The new Corning glass, two millimeters thick, is virtually as stable as standard window glass and only slightly more costly.

*The glass used in Birmingham was “Vitaglass,” a true glass of high quartz content invented by one F. E. Lamplough, M. A., Cambridge University, made in a factory in Birmingham, Eng.