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Phoenicia has no natrum, and not even any vegetable alkali readily procurable in considerable quantity. There may have been an accidental discovery of glass in Phoenicia, but priority of discovery belonged almost certainly to Egypt; and it is, upon the whole, most probable that Phoenicia derived from Egypt her knowledge both of the substance itself and of the method of making it.
The process of glass-blowing is represented in tombs at Beni Hassan of very great antiquity, and a specimen of Egyptian glass is in existence bearing the name of a Usurtasen, a king of the twelfth dynasty. Natrum, moreover, was an Egyptian product, well known from a remote date, being the chief ingredient used in the various processes of embalming.
According to Pliny, the first discovery of the substance was made upon the Phoenician coast by a body of sailors whom he no doubt regarded as Phoenicians. These persons had brought a cargo of natrum, which is the subcarbonate of soda, to the Syrian coast in the vicinity of Acre, and had gone ashore at the mouth of the river Belus to cook their dinner.
Having lighted a fire upon the sand, they looked about for some stones to prop up their cooking utensils, but finding none, or none convenient for the purpose, they bethought themselves of utilising for the occasion some of the blocks of natrum with which their ship was laden.
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