In pretty much all cases - it is undissolved (or precipitated) colorant flakes in the glass. Those flakes reflect light in most cases. A company like Peltier intentionally used it to very good advantage to cause dense colorant in the glass for specific NLRs (Golden Rebel, Zebras etc). It was more expensive for them to use excess colorant in that way, which is probably why it was done so sparingly. Marbles had to be made ultra-cheaply.