Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/177

 1068.] Stained Glass. 149 that was not built up long ago, and be- fore the northwest and northeast sec- tions of our city. It is easily answered. We could not get across ; we needed a bridge ; and, now, that this one is built, look at the result. Brooklyn, with her ferry-boats, has grown to be a magnifi- cent city, but to West Philadelphia, with her bridges, she will be but Lillipu- tian. West Philadelphia has a great and glorious future. In a very few years, her river front will be lined with stores and warehouses.* The concen- tring of the great railroads of this country in her midst ; the building by the Pennsylvania R. 11. of the mammoth wharf one mile in length, must neces- ent, we hope not. There is plenty of room in the Neck, for stores and warehouses; in fact, considerably more space than the whole solidly built portion of Philadel- phia now occupies. What we hope to see, is the whole river front of West Philadelphia occupied with lawns and groves as part of the great Park. — Eds, sarily attract a large number of wealthy merchants, and a concourse of other business men. All these people, with their families, must seek a convenient home. Houses, from this time forward, will be built by hundreds ; and the most delightful part of our city will be West Philadelphia. Mr. John Rice, the eminent builder of this city, in purchasing the large tract of ground upon which the present improvements are now being made, has displa}-ed his well-known sagacity as a real estate operator and a far-seeing man, leading in a gigantic enterprise ; benefiting the public, and far eclipsing his timid contemporaries, while giving them heart and courage to follow in the wake of a leader, whose enterprise and judgment is unquestioned, and whose un- interrupted success is a sure guarantee of well-ripened experience and success- ful management, in undertakings at once judicious and bold. STAINED GLASS. By John Gibson.* FOLLOWING up the remarks made in a former communication, we will now endeavor to explain the cause of the decline of the art of producing, in stained windows, the sublime effects of the ancient masters ; or, at least, the known decline of the effect, and the sup- posed decline of the art, in the hands of the artists in glass during the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, and part of the nineteenth. As was said before, much of the sparkling brilliancy has been added by the aid of time, and the imperfect manufacture of the glass itself, as compared with the mode of production of the later centuries. The old masters in glass were not only painters but chemists, who made their own glass in small crucibles, mix- ing their colors in them, and not blow- ing the contents out into large cylinders, as at the present day ; but casting them in pieces, rude and rough on the sm-face, not making their panes larger than from four to six inches square, and these so very irregular in thickness and so im- perfectly mixed, that you will find in the same piece a variety of shades and many streaks, all of which plainly shows that they either had not the power or the science — or possessing both had not the desire — to manufacture it smooth and fine as at the present clay. Not unlikely the seemingly defective irregularity was the proper result of deep design, as this, so far from detracting from the
 * With due deference to the feelings of our correspond-
 * J. &. G. H. Gibson, Stained Glass Manufacturers, No. 125 South Eleventh street, Philadelphia.