are of frequent occurrence. Some of these are dark blue
or green, others party-colored with stripes winding round them in
zigzag or in spiral lines, reminding one of mosaic patterns. Pieces of
glittering glass, being most likely fragments of so-called
_allassontes versicolores_ (not to be mistaken for originally white
glass which has been discolored by exposure to the weather), are not
unfrequently found. We propose to name in the following pages a few of
the more important specimens of antique glass-fabrication. One of the
first amongst these is the vessel known as the Barberini or Portland
Vase, which was found in the sixteenth century in the sarcophagus of
the so-called tomb of Severus Alexander and of his mother Julia
Mammaea. It was kept in the Barberini Palace for several centuries,
till it was purchased by the Duke of Portland, after whose death it
was placed in the British Museum. After having been broken by the hand
of a barbarian, it has fortunately been restored satisfactorily. Many
reproductions of this vase in china and terra-cotta have made it known
in wide circles. The mythological bas-reliefs have not as yet been
sufficiently explained. Similar glass vases with bas-relief
ornamentation occur occasionally either whole or in fragments.

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EMPLOYMENT.

Many arts and inventions were in common use in Egypt for centuries
before they are generally supposed to have been known; and we are now
and then as much surprised to find that certain things were old 3,000
years ago, as the Egyptians would be if they could hear us talk of
them as late discoveries. One of them is the use of glass, with which
they were acquainted at least as early as the reign of the first
Osirtasen, more than 3,800 years ago; and the process of glass-blowing
is represented during his reign, in the paintings of Beni Hassan, in
the same manner as it is on later monuments, in different parts of
Egypt, to the time of the Persian conquest.

The form of the bottle and the use of the blow-pipe are unequivocally
indicated in those subjects; and the green hue of the fused material,
taken from the fire at the point of the pipe, sufficiently proves the
intention of the artist. But, even if we had not this evidence of the
use of glass, it would be shown by those well-known images of glazed
pottery, which were common at the same period; the vitrified substance
that covers them being of the same quality as glass, and contai