Nancy Beck, age 10, of Junction City, Oregon, for her question:

When was glass first made?

No doubt the first glass was made by accident and most likely the same happy accident happened more than once. So we cannot say when the first glass was made or who made it. Chances are it was a simple sort of glass, made by heating sand with a stone that contained a soda type material. Old timers often used stones of this sort to build a hearth, perhaps on a sandy beach. Sometimes the log fire would be hot enough to turn the sand into gobs of simple glass.

We cannot say when people started making glass on purpose. But we know it was thousands of years ago because glass objects have been found in the old tombs of Egypt. It takes a very, very hot furnace to change sand into glass. In those days, the only fuels were wood and perhaps charcoal. So glass making was a very expensive fob. The glass makers of ancient Egypt made beautiful colored glass. But it was so expensive that pieces of colored glass were more valuable than emeralds, rubies and other precious gems.