BEAD. A variety of personal ornament, made of various materials. as glass, pottery, metal, bone, ivory, wood, jet. amber, coral. etc.. and per forated so that it can be strung on threads and made into necklaces, bracelets, rosaries. etc., or worked on cloth as a kind of embroidery. The use of beads 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 Phomicians in trading with various nations in Africa are still found in consideralde numbers, and are highly valued by the natives under the name of 'Aggry' beads. Ever since the Fourteenth Century the manufacture of glass beads has been chiefly engrossed by the Venetians. (See GLASS.) The manufacture is curious; the melted glass, colored or uncolored, is taken from the pot by two workmen, who slightly expand the collected mass by blowing down their blowpipes; they then open up the ex panded glass, and join the two together, while 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 an nealed. and are chopped into lengths. The rough ly cut beads are next mixed very thoroughly with tine sand and ashes, then nut into a metal cylin der over a brisk tire, 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.