BEADS, a variety of personal ornament, made of various materials, as glass, pottery, metal, bone, ivory, wood, jet, amber, coral, etc., and perforated so that they can be strung on threads and made into necklaces, bracelets, rosaries, etc., or worked on cloth as a kind of embroidery. Their use is of great antiquity, for they are found in the most ancient of the Egyptian tombs as decorations of the dead, and beads supposed to have been used as barter by the in trading with various nations in Africa are still found in considerable numbers, and are highly valued by the natives under the name of "Aggry" beads. Ever since the 14th c., the manufacture of glass beads has been chiefly engrossed by the Venetians, and the glass manufacturers of still produce fully nine tenths of all the beads made; the imports to this country alone m 182 were 2,093,603 lbs., of the value of £103,488. The manufacture is curious; the melted glass, colored or uncolored, is taken from the pot by two workmen, who slightly expand the gathering by blowing down their blowpipes; they then open up the expanded glass, and join the two together whilst still very soft. This done, they walk rapidly away from
each other in opposite directions, in a long shed like a small rope-walk, and draw the glass, which retains its tubular character given by the blowing, etc., into rods of great length, and often extremely small diameter. On cooling, which takes place very quickly, these long rods are broken up into short lengths of about a foot, and a small number of these shorter rods are placed on a sharp cutting edge, after being annealed, and are chopped into lengths. The roughly cut beads are next mixed very thoroughly with ale sand and ashes, then put into a metal cylinder over a brisk fire, and turned round rapidly as they begin to soften with the heat. They are then agitated in water, which cleans away the sand and ashes, and leaves the holes free, after which they are strung.