Glass harmonica Franklin and a fellow of the Royal Society, extended the experiments of Pockrich, contriving a set of glasses better tuned and easier to play. During the same decade, Christoph Willibald Gluck also attracted attention playing a similar instrument in England. Benjamin Franklin invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval at Cambridge in England in May 1761. Franklin worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies. Writing to his friend Giambatista Beccaria in Turin, Italy,
Float glass technique (invented by Sir Alastair Pilkington) in the 1950s at their production site in St Helens, Merseyside. Until the 16th century, window glass or flat glass was generally cut from large discs (or rondels) of crown glass. Larger sheets of glass were made by blowing large cylinders which were cut open and flattened, then cut into panes. Most window glass in the early 19th century was made using the cylinder method. The 'cylinders' were long and in diameter, limiting the width that panes of glass could be cut, and resulting in windows divided by transoms into rectangular panels. The first