Show y roalin Roain iu around with the N E 4 A r on one of a series of articles by albert W epperson on a recent trip with the national editorial association in new york state on the morning of june 24 we departed tor for rochester lor for a mile trip through the finger lakes country with our evening destination syracuse NY i we entered the ringer finger lakes country at cc canandaigua inand algua at the foot of the lake of the same name there are six lakes all characteristically long narrow and deep from west to east they are canan I 1 balgua beuka keuka seneca cayuga ewasco owasco Skane skaneateles the individual names and the concept finger lakes both originated with the indians indiana who had a legend which explained the flakes as being the finger marks ot of the great spirit actually they are of 0 glacial origin the shortest lake Is 11 miles long the longest 40 miles seneca i with a depth ot of more than teet feet is one of the deepest bodies of wa ter in the united states because of this tremendous depth the lake rarely freezes a fact which led to a local joke on the use of seneca A P X 1 I W k the young lady seems to be getting a few pointers from this trout fisherman at Decker deckertown town creek near Mont montour ofir falls trout streams in this finger lakes section are recognized as among the finest in new york state I 1 lake water as a radiator antifreeze in 1873 the cout courthouse at canan i daigue was the acene cene ot of a trial that attracted a good deal of 0 attention the only crime of which he abe defendant was accused was that hat of voting in a national elec tion ion but in that year it if you a woman voting was a crime and this defendant was a woman ran B anthony her pioneer efforts are largely responsible for woman suffrage our route continues on south skirting the west shore of keuka beuka lake until ae arrive at hammonds port at it southern end hammondsport Hammond sport hammondsport Hammond sport Is the center of the finger lakes wine region the fact that the finger lakes region Is one of the count rys foremost wine producers is largely the doing J of an episcopal clergyman william bostwick of course ourse he realize that he was laying the foundation tor for the great industry lie he just thought it would be nice to have some grapes and so be set out some vines that was in 1830 it turned out that the water tempered climate and the light gravelly soil of the finger lakes country was just the right combination 1 to make a grape vine teel feel happy happ 7 and nd contented the vines grew I 1 arid and flourished just about the I 1 time people were beginning to onder der what could be done with these tremendous crops of grapes another man had an idea he was german and hed seen been the vineyard yard regions of europe it occurred to him that the ringer finger lakes were a lot like those ot of tte the great champagne districts it also occurred to him that it was I 1 a long time since he had drunk ny champagne andrew Heisl nger the thirsty german nan found champagne a rare commodity on the raw frontier and 1 in l 1853 j he decided to make his I 1 oan n using the local grapes his were highly success t fill L so successful that in 1860 one 0 ot of lil ae 1 great companies producing jk axner ian I c an in champagne was founded jan A se seven years later laler finger lake champ tham g a was winning gold me elal in ill the capital or of the country whre champagne was born paris experts say that the best finger lakes champagne is as good as french champagne the principal difference is that european champagne pa mie depends on vintage t g e years year A good year will produce an exceptional wine the ringer finger lakes vintners vint ners have discarded the vintage system and use a different method in which production of the superior years Is blended with that of the years that are not so good under this method the bottle of champagne you buy today is as nearly like the bottle you will buy ten years from now a as a human ingenuity can make it the making of champagne as it Is done in the finger lakes and in n france rance Is slow business from the grape to the bottle takes about three years after the juice Is pressed from the grapes it is stored in large wooden casks to begin a long series of changes after the wine has been bottled it goes to the cool dark vaults where it 11 undergoes the subtle changes that make it into champagne after an aging ot of about two years the bottles are set in racks neck down to 10 allow the sediment to settle on the cork dining this step the bottles must be turned each day then they are frozen at the necks the temporary cork with its sediment Is removed and the final cork inserted corning our next stop is corning the crystal city corning takes its name from erastus corning an albany promoter who founded a company in 1835 to speculate in land in the upper chemung valley corning Is known today for the corning glass company which has its plant here corning glass is one of the oldest known manufacturers in the world glass manufacturing Is divided into three major types of product 1 flat glass window plate etc 2 container glass bottles jars etc 3 pressed and blown glass cooking and table ware light bulbs and radio tubes optical glass etc corning belongs in the third category the company dates back to 1851 when it was established in somer alle mass it has been in corning coming since 1868 and operating under its present name since 1875 from its early days the company has been distinguished for the research which has made major contributions to the glass industry industrial du research is an activity in which one thing leads to another it t has hag been so at corning where fin an amazing number of uses for glass and types of glass have originated igina ted A little story they tell at the corning coming plant puts it in a nutshell in 1877 the railroads complained to the corning people that rain and sleet cracked the lanterns of their brakemen they wanted a better glass for the lantern globes corning got some help from a physicist at cornell and went rent to work on the problem that was uras the beginning of 0 the research program after a while corning produced a glass that would resist temperature changes then they found out that it also resisted acids so in addition to lantern globes they started barted making battery jars then men one day according to the story a foreman found one of the work i continued on page 6 roalin around continued from page 1 men taking one of the jars home what are you going to do with that the foreman wanted to know why my wife says just the thing to bake macaroni in was the answer the story may or may not be true it Is a tact fact that pyrex has been on the market since 1915 first as ovenware and later as Flame ware which can be used on top of 0 the stove as well avell as in the oven pyrex is by no means the most I 1 le emar kable glass that orning corning has developed they have a glass composed of 96 percent silica that can be heated red hot and plunged into ice fee water without breaking they have a glass which conducts electricity and another which blocks xray x ray every time you have your temperature taken you use glass developed and produced by corning back in 1879 a man with an idea came to corning for help in solving a problem lie ile wanted a thin glass container tor for an invention he was working on it was a sort of a bottle but not a bottle it was a thing which had never existed corning glass blowers made it the man was thomas A edison and the thing he wanted was the bulb for his incandescent electric light the astronomers building the palomar observatory came to corning coming glass with their problem they wanted a glass disk for the mirror of the worlds largest telescope they had in mind a piece of glass inches across weighing about 20 tons A piece of glass that sl size z e had never been poured some engineers were doubtful if it could be done the corning people thought it could be done and in 1934 they did it the first attempt completely successful some of the cores in the mold broke loose that piece of glass you can see at the glass center today A second casting was completely compie tely successful and that piece of glass is scanning the heavens today at mt palomar cal thousands of people have asked the corning company ti to take them through their plant and let them see the fascinating steps of glass making such requests were always refused because the company felt they were not equipped to handle visitors but last year at a coltof cost of some they built th the e glass center which our group k visited here you will see the most representative collection of glass objects in the world here too you will see the ancient hand band craft of glass working glass blowers and skilled artists creating the beautiful steuben glass pieces of art which are prized gifts to kings and queens attached to the glass center Is the actual plant where steuben glass glas is created and from a balcony you can see these skilled artisans shaping their crystal with the same tools and methods that were developed ju in 63 B C our luncheon this day was at the glass center as guests of the corning company to be continued |