When lightning struck sand, it creates glass in the form fulgurites. Also known as ‘petrified lightning' or ‘lightning tubes', they form in sand and a wide variety of soils when the moisture content is right.

The main component of regular glass is silica, which melts at around 1650°C. Sand, generally is mostly made of silica. The plasma generated by lightning strikes, on an average goes well over 30,000°C.

Volcanoes fusing rocks with sand creates obsidian glass. It is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. Both of these natural events occurred many times before man learned the techniques of glassmaking.

Where and when and man first learned to make glass is not known, but cut glass has been traced back as far as ancient Egypt, and engraved glass to ancient Rome. Glassmaking flourished in all the countries under Roman rule. The celebrated Portland vase was manufactured in Rome about 70 AD. It is the best known piece of Roman cameo glass and has served as an inspiration to many glass and porcelain makers from about the beginning of the 18th century onwards. It has has been in the British Museum in since 1810.

Glassmaking gradually spread all over Europe, and the trade was considered to be an art of high social standing.

The methods and ingredients used to make glass, and the tools used to form it, have probably changed less over the years that any other process. The earliest glass was fused in molds to make beads or formed around sand cores to make small vessels. The event that changed glass making the most was the introduction of the blowpipe. Historians don’t really know when this occurred either, but generally, it was before the birth of Christ. Since then gravity, temperature, and constant movement of the molten material have been used in the formation of objects of glass.

In 1608 Captain John Smith brought glassblowers to his new colony of Virginia. A glasshouse was built on the mainland where plenty of fuel could be obtained. It is almost certain that green glass bottles were made there. In 1621 another glasshouse was built in Jamestown and glassblowers were instructed to make beads for barter with the Indians. In 1632 in his report on the new colony of Virginia, Captain Smith said that "glas" was sent "home." There is little doubt that glassmaking was America's first industry.

During the 18th century, English glass of the Queen Anne period was imported into America in unbelievable quantities. In 1712 Bristol glass was advertised in Boston, and in 1719 there was a shop there that exclusively sold glass.

The first successful glass made commercially in America was that of Wistar, a manufacturer of bottles, window glass, and other practical utensils from 1739 to 1780, a remarkably long time for a colonial business. The factory’s original product of brass buttons was so successful that the plant expanded into the glassmaking field. The company was successful enough to survive the depression years of the Revolution, and the workmanship of the products made at Wistar’s two Southern New Jersey plants (the other one was opened in Glassboro in 1781) became known as South Jersey. South Jersey was usually free blown and tooled into simple pictures, bowls and bottles. Later much of the South Jersey had decorations of crimped and pinched bands of glass, trailing, and quilting superimposed on it. Colors were usually those that were present naturally, green, aquamarine and amber. The most original and inventive technique attributed to the South Jersey workmen was the "lily pad" motif. Blown out of the tag ends of the melting pots of green window or bottle glass, this style was purely American and did not pretend to imitate or compete with imported pieces.

In the 1760’s, a man named Henry Steigel began making glass in his father-in-law's ironworks. Steigel decided to manufacture decanters and drinking glasses instead of limiting the company to the manufacture of bottles and window glass. He traveled to London and Bristol and studied the art of glassmaking and hired workers trained in German, Venetian and English techniques.

Advertisements from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts and account books show that Steigel manufactured a wide variety of tableware, including salt, creamers,, bowls, cruets, wine glasses, tumblers, mugs, small containers, mustard, and smelling salts and candlesticks. His colored glass was blown into part-sized molds to give it a pattern, and then expanded to full size and finished, a technique called pattern-molding. Steigel engraved and enameled his flint glass. Flint glass is crystal made of pulverized flint.

Another German, John Frederick Amelung, founded the New Bremen Glass Manufactory near Frederick, Maryland in 1784. The company's clear glass decanters, glasses and goblets were shallow wheel engraved, frequently bore commemorative inscriptions, and set a high standard for the company's competitors.

After that, many important glasshouses were founded in midwestern areas, including Zanesville, Ravenna, Mantua and Kent, in Ohio.

Bakewell and Company of Pittsburgh was established in 1808, and employed skilled English and Irish cutters. Its cut and engraved glass rivaled the quality of imported glass. In addition, Bakewell also manufactured free-blown and molded wares both clear and in colors. Bakewell followed trends in both products and patterns, and became one of the most diversified manufacturers of glass in the century.

The early 18th century had many more glass factories, and some of these, like the 1818 New England Glass Company of East Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company of Cape Cod in 1825 became giants in the industry.

White Bakewell’s and the New England Glass Company were producing glass in the best European traditions, America took the lead in improvements in glass making techniques, like mechanical pressing. Because of American inventions of the late 1820s, glass could be pressed in a hand-operated mold into elaborately stippled pieces, known today as "lacy glass." Simple molds manually pressed together were made into salt cellars and cup plates, inexpensively imitating cut glass.

The second type of glass developed in America, was blown three-mold glass, which also imitated the more expensive cut glass. In this process, the blower expanded his gather of glass within a three-part mold, hinged to a base, until it filled the pattern of the mold, some of which had cut glass patterns incised on them. After the mold was opened, the piece was manipulated with tools if further decoration was desired. Blown three-mold pieces were produced in glass houses from New England to Ohio in both clear and colored glass, and some in bottle glass.

Among the most popular American mold-blown objects was the historical flask, ornamented with political figures, national heroes, and popular slogans. They were made throughout the 19th century, and remain as a pictorial of history. The American eagle appeared more frequently than any other motif; Masonic emblems and political slogans were often used.

Shortly after the beginning of the 19th century, another technique developed around Pittsburgh, pattern-molded glass. The shape and pattern of this ware was formed by blowing the gather into part-sized dip, an open top, one piece mold, or hinged molds. After it was removed from the mold, further blowing expanded the glass into the desired size. The pattern, impressed by the mold, spread out into a soft outline. Ribbed, swirled and diamond patterns where the most popular designs. The "broken-rib" was made by dipping the gather into the mold twice. After the gather was blown into a rib mold, it was removed, given a twist, and blown into the mold a second time. Then it was removed from the mold and expanded into a flask or dish.

The earliest known examples of American cut glass date from 1711 and they were of simple designs, like stars in geometric designs. Engraving was also done in America. Fruit and floral designs were the most popular, as were classical swags and festoons. After the engraving, the pieces were hand-polished on wooden wheels, thus giving them a soft luster distinct from the later high-speed wheel polishing or acid bath. Fine cut designs were made by Amelung Bakewell, the New England Glass Company, and the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company.

By 1830, the American glass industry had become so well established that it no longer had to depend on foreign imports, and high tariffs were levied on glass from Europe. The Baldwin Bill of 1830 that levied the tariffs, created a boom in American glass manufacture so great that to historians, the Colonial Period of American glass manufacture came to an end. It was now time for America's glass industry to create its own style.

Illustrations from top to bottom:
A) "Glass Blower and Mold Boy. Grafton, W. Va." (Library of Congress)
B) EXOGENIC FULGURITES, ELKO COUNTY, NEVADA Wedding scene, detail of the side A of the Portland Vase
C) Masonic Historical Flask, Coventry Glass Works, Coventry, Connecticut, 1824 – 1826
D) Attributed to Henry William Stiegel, Diamond Daisey Bottle, 1767-84. Blown amethyst glass. Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery