In the history of our country, with the development of individual handicraft industry, after the materials used for glasses have been developed from natural crystal stone to the use of glass, the scope of use of glasses has begun to be popularized and expanded to the people, and the production technology has also developed new.
China's Suzhou (Suzhou) is the birthplace of my country's glasses. Suzhou's production of glasses not only has a long history, but also has played a great role in promoting the development of my country's glasses industry. In the early years of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty (1628 AD), there was an outstanding technician named Sun Yunqiu in the history of Suzhou glasses. He was diligent and eager to learn since he was a child. At that time, he saw that people with poor eyesight were in pain, but "single-view" mirrors were inconvenient to use. So he meticulously developed a lens that can often be placed on glasses. After repeated experiments, he invented and created a lens grinding machine using mechanical principles - a cart. This kind of trolley is the so-called water orange processed by the classical method. It is rotated with a pedal, and ore sand, white mud, brick ash, etc. are used as abrasives or polishing materials, and the lenses are ground into convex and concave lenses to adapt to eye refraction. In the end, I finally mastered the grinding technology and used natural crystal stones to grind the lenses. At the same time, he has mastered the technique of "optometry" (optometry), and developed lenses of presbyopia, myopia, hyperopia and other varieties and various luminosity according to people's age and different vision, and compiled a set of "eye-matching mirrors". "The original optometry method is used to check the eyesight. In this way, glasses can be fitted with the eyes, the effect is not bad at all, and it is more convenient and comfortable to wear on the face to meet the needs of each person's vision. This is the beginning of my country's independent optometry.
Later, Sun Yunqiu invented and developed optical lenses for different purposes, including hundreds of flower mirrors, mandarin duck mirrors, magnifying glasses, polygon mirrors, and magic mirrors. Since then, Sun Yunqiu's glasses have become famous all over the world. It is a pity that such a talented technical talent died of illness at the age of 33, but he left behind a scientific and technological work called "Mirror History", which played an inestimable role in promoting the glasses manufacturing technology of later generations.
After Sun Yunqiu, in the Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty, there was another talent in making glasses in Suzhou, named Chu Sanshan. He further developed the technique of making glasses, which was quite influential.
Because Suzhou produced two outstanding glasses-making technical talents, Sun Yunqiu and Chu Sanshan, which promoted the formation and development of the Suzhou glasses industry at that time. In 1735, Suzhou had appeared a workshop specializing in the production of glasses.
By the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, the production and sales of glasses had flourished in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Tianjin, Guangzhou and other places. Glasses have become a specialized commodity.
The industry is on the rise