Hi.  I can't add much re glass colors (ever tried to describe colors in
glass canning jars--variable from top to bottom in same jar after
reconstruction).  However, at last I can use data from a 1910 house we
rehabbed in Pine Bluff, AR.  When we pulled the baseboards on this frame
house, we discovered that all the exterior walls had a "layer" of glass
1'-2' deep resting at the bottom of the wall.  It was all broken, none
had mold seams all the way up to the lip, vessel function varied from
medicinal to straight alcohol to personal grooming.  The walls had no
fireblocks so it made it easy to rewire the house.  We realized that the
glass had to have been deposited at least while the wall was being
sheathed (interior and exterior 1" thick boards).  I asked old
carpenters, and they said, after giggling about drunken workers, that
this was a technique to discourage mice.  We did find 2 dessicated mice,
but that was out of a total linear run of 300' plus of glassed wall.  We
recovered most of the glass and now it's in the artifact collections of
the Arkansas Archeological Survey.  The walls were pumped full of
cellulose insulation after we finished wiring, and I can't report on if
there were new mice but we did live in the house without problems for 12
years.  Bye for now.
 
Leslie C. Stewart-Abernathy
Arkansas Archeological Survey
Arkansas Tech University
Russellville, AR