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HISTORY OF SEA GLASS
I have met a lot of interesting people who are confused about where sea and beach glass, which are one-in-the-same, comes from. People think there was a ship wrecked that was full of glass or that there was a glass factory in the area. Others think sea glass just comes from the sea, a natural wonder.
In the old days, because beach glass has been around as long as we have had glass, it was said to be "Mermaid Tears". It was said that everytime a sailor drowned at sea, the Mermaids would cry and the sea glass was their tears washing up on the shore.
Sea glass and beach glass is found everywhere in the world, because people have discarded glass in the oceans everywhere. It was natural for ocean communities worldwide to discard their trash in the oceans because the sea carried it away. The world was a much larger place in those days and the population was much smaller.
Everywhere Sea Glass and beach glass is found, and it is found everywhere, its value is partially determined by its color (rarity of sea glass). This is because only a few items were stored in red, blue, lavender, purple or pink glass containers. Certain rare tints and shades of these popular colors are found, some changed by time or sunlight.
For instance, very rare Cobalt Blue, the "sapphire" of the beach, came from such apothacary items as Milk of Magnesia, Vick's Vapo Rub, Noxema, Nivea, and Bromo Seltzer bottles, along with some prescription bottles and perfumes
The extremely rare red pieces, or "rubies" of the beach, might come from perfume bottles, the tail lights on old automobiles, lantern and traffic light lenses, or even some types of old beer bottles, like the bottles made by Anchor Hocking.
Pinks, lavenders, purples, lime greens and other rare shades of came from things like perfume bottles.
Greens, browns, and aquas come from beer and soda bottles, and nearly every other source, like Clorox Bleach jugs, shampoos, etc.
And sometimes, like in the old town dump in Fort Bragg, California, the sea glass is also passed through fires and becomes "Fire Glass", the rarest of sea glass, and often has "inclusions" (things inside), just like, or better than, precious gems.
In fact, gemological terms like "inclusions", "clarity", "color", "facets" and "purity" also pertain directly to sea glass, except that inclusions and "im-purities" are bad in gemstones and usually excellent in sea glass, and a lot of people prefer their sea glass "frosted" instead of clear (unless there are "inclusions") and no one would think of buying a cloudy diamond, except to HIDE an inclusion!
Sea glass goes back in history for as long as man has had glass.
As the raw glass is broken into smaller pieces and slowly polished by the sand as it is rolled around in the surf, it becomes "beach", or "sea" glass:
sea glass of gemstone quality.
The pits in the surface of the glass, giving it its soft feel, come from a process called "hydration", where the soda and lime used in making the glass is leached out of the glass, leaving the small pits. The soda and lime also often react with minerals in the sea water, forming new mineral deposits on the surface that give the glass a "sparkling" appearance.
Most beaches that produce sea glass are open to the sea, so even if the site was originally a town dump, where a lot of material was deposited in one place, like in Fort Bragg until 1967, the glass is drawn off the beach by the sea and distributed up and down the coast by the "longshore currents", making it difficult and rare to find, which explains its normally high cost.
Like precious gems, beach glass is rare and beautiful.
A lot of sea glass is also found on the beaches in the vicinity of old ship anchorages, like in the Chesapeake Bay, because ships also used to discard over the side.
If you have an old ocean dump site near you, take a stroll on a sunny day and you might find Mermaid Tears glistening in the sun and sand.
For those of you interested in Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, there are actually three main sites here. The last was active from 1949 to 1967. This is the area now within the State Park and is what was noted in the August 2007 edition of Martha Stewart's "Living" as being the highest concentration of sea glass in the world. There is actually much more than that here in the middle and first sites. The middle was active from 1943 to 1949. With some research, I can only determine that Fort Bragg began ocean dumping in 1906 after the big earthquake when the center of town burned. All that refuse was bulldozed into the ocean at the foot of Pine Street and that site was used until 1943. Prior to that a lot of people buried their trash in their yards and there might of been a landfill out Simpson Lane because the town was originally out there when the fort was where the town is now, which was about the middle of the Pomo Indian Reservation.
The 49-67 and 43-49 sites are both accessible by foot, with a little climbing, and the pre-43 site can only be legally accessed by ocean kayak or boat.
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