The flame of a lamp, or candle, condensed and directed by a current of air, is exceedingly useful in a great number of arts. The instrument which is employed to modify flame is the Blowpipe. This is an indispensable agent for jewellers, watch-makers, enamellers, glass-blowers, natural philosophers, chemists, mineralogists, and, indeed, for all persons who are occupied with the sciences, or their application to the arts. Its employment offers immense advantages in a multitude of circumstances; and the best method of making use of so powerful an agent ought to be well known to every person who is likely to be called upon to adopt it.

Students, especially those who desire to exercise themselves in chemical manipulation, must feel the want of a simple and economical process, by means of which they could give to glass tubes, of which they make great use, the various forms that are necessary for particular operations. How much reason have they to complain of the high price of the instruments of which they make continual use! The studies of a great number are shackled from want of opportunity to exercise themselves in manipulation; and many, not daring to be at the expense of a machine of which they doubt their ability to make an advantageous use, figure to themselves the employment of the glass-blower’s apparatus as being beset with difficulties, and so rest without having even an idea of the numberless instruments which can be made by its means.

Many persons would very willingly occupy their leisure time in practising the charming art of working glass and enamels with the blowpipe; but the anticipated expense of the apparatus, and the difficulties which they imagine to foresee in the execution of work of this kind, always repels them.

The new species of blowpipe which we have offered to the public, and which has received the approbation of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, obviates all these inconveniences: its moderate price, its portability, and the facility with which it can be used, adapt it to general employment.

But we should not believe that we had attained the end which we had proposed to ourselves if we had not placed young students in a situation to repeat at their own houses, at little cost, and with the greatest facility, the experiments which are necessary to familiarise them with the sciences. It is with such a view that we present to them this little Treatise, which is destined to teach them the simplest, the most expeditious, the least expensive, and the most effectual methods of constructing themselves the various instruments which they require in the prosecution of their studies.

The word glass-blower, generally speaking, signifies a workman who occupies himself in making of glass and enamel, the instruments, vessels, and ornaments, which are fabricated on a larger scale in the glass-houses: but the domain of the sciences having laid the art of glass-blowing under contribution, the artists of the lamp have divided the labours thereof. Some apply themselves particularly to the construction of philosophical and chemical instruments; others occupy themselves with little ornamental objects, such as flowers, &c.; and, among the latter, some manufacture nothing but pearls, and others only artificial eyes. Finally, a few artists confine themselves to drawing and painting on enamel, which substance is previously applied to metallic surfaces by means of the fire of a muffle.

As we intend to treat separately of these different branches of the art, we commence with that of which the manipulation is the simplest.

Paris, 1829.