Certain types of colorless, transparent glasses, when exposed to sunlight for extended periods of time, develop a pink or pale purplish color. Bottles, insulators, and other objects having their color changed in this way are often called "desert glass," but the scientist prefers

The Stages of Crizzling Stage 1: Initial Stage Presence of alkali on the glass gives the surface a cloudy or hazy appearance. Tiny droplets or fine crystals can form if there is high (above 55%) or low (below 40%) relative humidity. Glass may feel slippery or slimy. Washing will remove alkali from the surface and the glass will look great. Stage 2: Incipient Crizzling Similar symptoms to stage one, but the haziness remains after washing.

Here’s the ultimate jigsaw puzzle: take 40 pieces of shattered glass in varying sizes, and hundreds of tiny chips of glass, and put them together to restore a rare Tiffany Peacock Eye Lamp base to its full glory. That’s just what the Museum’s conservator, Stephen Koob, has done. Unless you examine it very closely, you probably won’t even realize you are looking at a previously shattered lamp. Koob, one of the world’s foremost glass conservators, works almost by instinct at this point in his career.

On August 2, 2007, a beautiful, fully restored 16th-century German house altar ( 59.3.39 ) was put on display for the first time since its acquisition by The Corning Museum of Glass in 1959.