PART II.
GAS-LIGHT. 47.
Encouragement given by the legislature to the new system of procuring light.--Gas-light company, incorporated by charter, to apply the new art of illumination by way of experiment, on a large scale, to illuminate the streets and houses of the metropolis.--Power and authorities granted to this corporate body.--are very restricted, and do not prevent other individuals from entering into competition with them.--Boundaries of their experiments.--limit of capital employed by them.--Power of His Majesty with regard to the gas-light charter.
THEORY OF THE COMBUSTION OF COAL IN ELUCIDATION OF THE NATURE OF GAS- LIGHT. 49.
Natural history of pit-coal.--Immediate constituent parts of coal.-- Their relative quantities--are different in different kinds of coal.-- Phenomena, which happen during the combustion of coal.--Analysis of coal by distillation.--Great waste of matter capable of producing light and heat, in the usual mode of burning coal.--Proofs of this statement.--Theory of the production of gas-light, compared with the production of light obtained by candles and lamps.--Place which the discovery of lighting with gas occupies in the philosophical order of knowledge.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE APPLICATION OF COAL- GAS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROCURING ARTIFICIAL LIGHT. 55.
The discovery of the inflammable nature and application of coal-gas for the production of artificial light, cannot be claimed by any body now living.--Early notices of the inflammable property of the gas obtained by distilling coal.--Attempts to substitute it for tallow and oil.--Experiments made with coal-gas by Dr. CLAYTON, Dr. HALES, and the Bishop of Llandaff.--First successful attempt of lighting manu- factories with gas.--_Creditor_ and _debtor_ account concerning the expence of this mode of illumination, when compared with the light obtained by tallow candles.--Claims of Mr. MURDOCH with regard to the economical application of coal-gas.--Claims of Mr. WINSOR.--Experi- ments of Mr. NORTHERN, Mr. CLEGG, Mr. COOK, Mr. ACKERMANN.--Economical statements of the gas-light illumination when compared with the cost of the same quantity of light obtained by means of candles and lamps.
THEORY OF THE PRODUCTION OF GAS-LIGHT; AND DESCRIPTION OF A PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR ILLUSTRATING, IN THE SMALL WAY, THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE NEW SYSTEM OF PROCURING LIGHT. 77.
Philosophy of the production of coal-gas.--Characters of the various products which the gas-light process affords, their quantities, and modes of obtaining them.--Quantity of gas obtainable from a given weight of coal.--Illuminating power of a given bulk of coal-gas compared with the illuminating power of a given weight of tallow candles.--Practical directions with regard to the production of the gas from coal.--Its chemical constitution and analysis.--Pit-coal is not the only substance which affords carburetted hidrogen gas.--This gas exists ready formed in nature.--Mode of collecting it when found native.--Is given out by all kinds of vegetable matter, submitted to distillation in close vessels.--Other sources of obtaining this gazeous fluid.--Practical directions with regard to the method of obtaining from coal, this gazeous substance, as best suited for illumination.--Chemical constitution of coal-gas.--How ascertained.
UTILITY OF THE GAS-LIGHT ILLUMINATION WITH REGARD TO PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ECONOMY. 99.
Objects to which the new system of lighting with gas may be beneficially applied.--Capital advantages of the gas-light illumina- tion.--Places and public edifices lighted with coal-gas in this metro- polis.--Situations best suited for the application of gas-lights.-- places where it cannot be used to advantage.--Illumination of barracks, arsenals, dock yards, &c. with coal-gas.--Further observa- tions on this subject.--Great heat produced by gas-lights.--Reason why the flame of coal-gas produces more heat than the flame of candles and lamps.--Admeasurement of the comparative degrees of heat produced by gas-lights, oil lamps, tallow and wax candles, &c.--Gas lamps and burners, various kinds of.--Ornamental chandeliers and candelabras, for applying coal-gas as a substitute for oil.--Other products obtain- able from coal besides gas.--_Coke._--Its nature.--Combustion of it.-- Produces a more strong and lasting heat than coal.--Explanation of this fact.--Advantages resulting from the use of coke as fuel.--Disad- vantages of its application in certain circumstances.--Relative effect of heat produced by equal quantities of coke and charcoal.--Method of measuring the comparative effect of different kinds of fuel in pro- ducing heat.--Capital advantages resulting from the application of coke, as fuel, in the art of burning lime.--Plaster of Paris, bricks, &c.--Quantity of coke obtainable from a certain quantity of pit-coal. --Kind of coke best suited for metallurgical operations.--Mode of obtaining it in the gas-light process.--Sort of coke best adapted for kitchen and parlour fires.--Manufacture of it.--_Coal tar._--How obtained.--Its properties.--Earl of Dundonald’s method of manufac- turing tar from coal.--Quantity of coal-tar produced in the gas-light process from a given quantity of coal.--Characters of coal tar obtained from Newcastle coal, differ from that produced from canel coal.--_Coal pitch._--Process for obtaining it.--Properties of coal- pitch.--Use of it in the arts.--quantity of coal-pitch obtainable from a given quantity of tar.--_Ammoniacal liquor_ produced during the distillation of coal.--Its chemical constitution.--Quantity obtained from a given quantity of coal.--General observation respecting the scheme of applying coal-gas as a substitute for candles and lamps.-- Effects which it must produce upon the arts and upon domestic economy. --Its views.--Primary advantages.--Resources which it presents to industry and public economy.--In what respect it is entitled to public approbation and national encouragement.--Effects of prejudice against the introduction of new and useful discoveries.--Have operated strongly in retarding the gas-light illumination.--Remarkable slowness with which improvements of extended utility make their way into common use, contrasted with the rapid adoption of fashionable changes.--Other causes unfavourable to the adoption of new and useful plans.--Further observations on this subject.--The new system of lighting with coal- gas can never supersede the use of candles and moveable lights.--Gas- light illumination cannot prove injurious to the Greenland fishery-- nor can it diminish the coal trade--must prove beneficial to it.--The price of coal even when it is the highest cannot materially affect the beneficial application of gas-lights.--Striking advantages to be derived from the introduction of gas-lights into manufactories.-- Principal expense which must always attend the gas-light illumination. --Is the dead capital employed for erecting the machinery.--Floating capital is small.--Advice to private individuals with regard to the erection of a gas-light apparatus calculated for their own use.-- Expence which must attend the application of the new system of lighting under different circumstances.--Entire new scheme of illuminating streets, or small towns, with gas-lights; which would save all the main pipes for conveying the gas through the streets as well as the branch pipes which conduct the gas to the lamps.--Manage- ment of the gas-light machinery is extremely simple and easy.--The apparatus not liable to be out of order.--Observations on the safety of the gas-light illumination.--Misapprehension of the public con- cerning it.--Causes that have alarmed the public concerning the application of the new lights.--Gas-lights cannot give rise to those accidents which have so often arisen from the careless snuffing of candles, &c.--Produce no embers or sparks.--Cannot fall, or be dis- turbed without becoming extinguished.--Are the safest of all lights.-- Impossibility of streets or towns lighted with gas to be thrown suddenly into darkness by the fracture of the gas-pipes conveying the gas to the lamps--or by the destruction of one or more of the gas- light machineries employed for preparing the gas.--Illustration showing the absurdity of such mistaken notions.--Curious self-ex- tinguishing lamp, invented by Mr. CLEGG.--His machine which measures and registers in the absence of the observer, the quantity of gas delivered by a pipe communicating with a gas-light _main_.--Leading characters of the new lights.--Objects and views which this art embraces.--It must lessen the consumption of oil.--Occasion a defalcation in the revenue.
TABULAR VIEW, Exhibiting the quantity of GAS, COKE, TAR, PITCH, ESSENTIAL OIL, and AMMONIACAL LIQUOR, obtainable from a given quantity of COAL: together with an estimate of the quantity of Coal necessary to produce a quantity of Gas, capable of yielding a Light equal in duration of time and intensity to that produced by Tallow Candles of different kinds. 164.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GAS-LIGHT APPARATUS. 166.
METHOD of correcting the relative pressure of the Gasometer, so as to cause the gas which it contains to be uniformly of an equal density. 181.
DIRECTIONS TO WORKMEN ATTENDING THE GAS-LIGHT APPARATUS. 182.
ESTIMATE of the price of a Gas-Light Apparatus. 185.
LONDON Price List of the most essential articles employed in the erection of a Gas-light Apparatus. 186.
ERRATA.
Page 24, line 11, _for_ too, _read_ two. 48, 22, _for_ corporated, _read_ incorporated. 53, 7, _for_ this combustion, _read_ the combustion. 64, 24, _for_ CLEG, _read_ CLEGG. _ibid_ 25, _for_ communicates, _read_ communicated. 65, erase the * and put it after the word CLEGG, line 24, p. 64. _ibid_ 17, _for_ attemps, _read_ attempts. 125, 23, _for_ degree, _read_ degrees. 132, 25, _for_ coal, _read_ coal-tar.
DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER:
Plate I. facing the title; plate II. facing page 79; plate III. facing page 115; plate IV. facing page 119; plate V. facing page 120; and plates VI. and VII. at the end of the book.
A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON GAS-LIGHT.
INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATION.
INFLUENCE OF THE PROGRESS OF THE ARTS UPON THE MORALS AND CONDITION OF MAN.
It is an undoubted truth, that the successive improvements in the condition of man, from a state of ignorance and barbarism, to that of the highest cultivation and refinement, are usually effected by the aid of machinery and expedients, calculated to procure the necessaries, the comforts, and the elegancies of life; and that the pre-eminence of any people in civilization is, and ought ever to be, estimated by the proportional state of industry, and useful labour existing among them.
In proof of this great and striking truth, no other argument requires to be offered, than an immediate reference to the experience of all ages and places: the various nations of the earth, the provinces of each nation, the towns, and even the villages of the same province, differ from each other in their accommodations; and are in every respect more flourishing, the greater their activity in establishing new channels of useful employ, calculated to procure the necessaries and comforts of life. Hence the nations which have shewn the most ingenuity in this way, are not only the richest, but also the most populous and the best defended: the provinces of those nations, are seen to flourish likewise in proportion to their respective degrees of activity in this respect, And from these exertions it is, as SMITH[1] emphatically remarks, that “the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.”
[1] Wealth of Nations, chap. 1.
It was a strange notion of Rousseau to maintain that mankind were happier when they resembled wild beasts, than with all the expanded knowledge of civilized life; and that the cultivation of their understanding had tended to degenerate their virtues. There can be no virtue but what is founded on a comprehensive estimate of the effects of human actions, and an animal under the guidance of instinct can form no such estimate.
The variety of production, of wants, and fabrication of a civilized society, has given rise to barter or exchange; mutual supply has increased the sub-division of labour, and improved the means of conveyance. Streams, roads, ships, and carriages have extended their beneficial intercourse; confidence between man and man has advanced the moral principles of society, and afforded a progression, of which the past gradation may indeed be traced, but to the future part of which the imagination can scarcely form a probable outline. And as the moral and physical powers of man expand, new resources and new agencies are made subservient to our commands, which, in an earlier state of society, would have appeared altogether visionary.
Who among the ancients would have listened to the extraordinary scheme of writing books with such rapidity, that one man, by this new art, should perform the work of twenty thousand amanuenses? What philosopher would have given credit to the daring project of navigating the widest ocean?--or imagined the astonishing effect of gun-powder--or the extended application of the steam engine? What mortal would have dared to dive to the bottom of the sea--or to soar aloft into the air--or bid defiance to the thunder of the clouds? Discoveries which have changed, as it were, the course of human affairs, and the effects of which have already carried the intellectual operations of the human mind, to a height they could by no other means have attained. The men of those early ages, in the confidence of their own wisdom, might have derided these discoveries as impossible, or rejected them as visionary; but to those, who enjoy the full effects of such, and numerous other successful inventions, it becomes a duty to reason upon different principles, and to exert all means in their power to give effect to the progress of useful knowledge.
The artificial production and supply of light during the absence of the sun, unquestionably holds a distinguished rank among the most important arts of civilized life.
If we could for a moment suppose the privation of artificial light, it would follow as an immediate consequence that the greatest part of the globe on which we dwell, would cease to be the habitation of man. Whether he could ensnare or overtake those animals upon whose unprepared remains he would then be compelled to feed--whether he might store the fruits of the earth for his winter supply--what might be the physical and moral consequences of a state of such desolation, may perhaps be conjectured; but no estimate can show its dreadful magnitude. How much do our comforts, and how greatly does the extent of our powers, in the common affairs of life, depend upon the production and supply of artificial light. The flame of a single candle animates a family, every one follows his occupation, and no dread is felt of the darkness of night. It might be a curious speculation to enquire how far, and in what respects, the morals of men would become degraded by the want of this contrivance. But it is sufficient on the present occasion, that, previous to entering upon a dissertation respecting a new art of illumination, a train of ideas has slightly been hinted at, which cannot fail to show its magnitude and importance. The methods of procuring and distributing light, during the absence of the sun, have not hitherto attained the extent of their possible perfection: there is yet a wide field for improvement in the construction of the instruments of illumination, and the subject is highly deserving the attention of every individual.
The scheme of lighting houses, streets, and manufactories, by means of the inflammable gas, obtainable by distillation from common pit-coal, professes to increase the wealth of the nation, by adding to the number of its internal resources, and on this ground it is entitled, at least, to a candid examination.
The apparent slight that has been thrown upon this new breach of civil economy by some individuals, who appear to be incapable of judging of its nature, has contributed to deter sensible and well disposed persons from wishing it success. It is the more necessary to state this fact, because, when a mistaken notion once becomes diffused, concerning the nature of a new project, persons of the best intention are liable to become affected with wrong impressions on their mind. I am neither a share holder, nor a governor, nor am I directly or indirectly concerned in any gas-light association.
The object of the succeeding pages, simply is to rescue the art of illumination with coal-gas from misconception and misrepresentation, and by a fair, and not overcharged statement of its merits and its disadvantages, to appeal from prejudice and ignorance, to the good sense of the community.