Chapter 4

"As soon as the gas gets through the purifiers," said he, "it comes, by an iron pipe, in here, and is made to pass through and give an account of itself before any of it is used. And now I suppose you would like to know how it does report its own amount, wouldn't you?"

Philip and Kitty both were sure they did want to know, so he sketched a little plan of the metre on a piece of paper, and then went on to explain it:

"This shows how the metre would look if you could cut it through in the middle. The large drum-shaped box A. A. is hollow, and filled a little more than half way up with water. Inside it is a smaller hollow drum, B. B. so arranged as to turn easily from right to left, on the horizontal axis C. This axis is a hollow pipe by which the gas comes from the purifiers to enter the several chambers of the metre in turn, through small openings called valves. The partitions P. P. P. P. divide the drum B. B. into--let us say--four chambers, 1, 2, 3, 4, all of the same size, and capable of holding a certain known amount of air or gas. The chamber 1 is now filled with gas, 3 with water, and 2 and 4 partly with gas and partly with water. The valves in the pipe C are so arranged that the gas will next pour into the chamber 2. This it does with such force as to completely fill it, lifting it quite out of the water and into the place that 1 had occupied before. Then as 1 is driven over to the place which 4 had occupied, the gas with which it was filled passes out by another pipe and off to the large reservoir you will see by and by, its place being filled with water. At the same time 4 is driven around to the place of 3, and 3 to that of 2. The water always keeps the same level, and simply waits for the chambers to come round and down to be filled.

"Next, 3, being in the place of 2, receives its charge of gas from the entrance pipe, is in turn lifted up into the central position, and sends all the other chambers around one step further. And when the drum gets completely around once, so that the chambers stand in the same places as at first, you know each chamber must have been once filled with gas and then emptied of it. If then we know that each chamber will hold, say two and a half cubic feet of gas, we are sure that every time the drum has turned fully around it has received and sent off four times two and a half feet, or ten feet in all. Now we connect the axis C with a train of wheel-work, something like that in a clock, and this wheel-work moves the pointers on the dials in front, so that as the gas in passing in and out of the chambers turns the drum on the axis, it turns the dial pointers also.

"The right hand dial marks up to one hundred. While its pointer is passing completely around once, the pointer on the next dial (which marks up to one thousand) is moving a short space and preserving the record of that one hundred; and then the first pointer begins over again. The two pointers act together just like the minute and hour hands on a clock. Then the next dial marks up to ten thousand, and acts in turn like an hour-hand to the thousands' dial as a minute-hand, and so on. You see each dial has its denominations, 'thousands,' 'hundred thousands,' or whatever it may be, printed plainly below it. And now, when we want to read off the dials, we begin at the left, taking in each case the last number a pointer _has passed_, and read towards the right, just as you have learned to do with any numbers in your 'Eaton's Arithmetic.' There is one thing more to remember, however; the number you read means not simply so many cubic feet of gas but so many hundred cubic feet."

Philip and Kitty immediately set to work to read the dials on the office metre, and found that they were not now so very mysterious.

"But how do you know how much people use?" asked Philip. "There is something like this metre, only smaller, down cellar at home, and a man came and looked at it the other day, to see how much gas had been burned in the house he said, when I asked him what he was going to do."

"The metre you have at home works in the same way as this," said Mr. Carter, "and the dial-plates are read in the same way. But the gas that your little metre registers is only that which you take from the main supply-pipe, to light your parlors and bed-rooms.

"When a stream of gas from the main enters the house, it has to pass through the metre the very first thing, before any of it is used; and each little metre keeps as strict an account of what passes through from the main to the burners, as the large one here in the office does of that which passes from the purifiers to the reservoir. But there is this difference between the two: the gas keeps pouring through the office metre as long as we keep making it in the retorts, but it passes through your metre at home only just as long as you keep drawing it off at the burners. So if we find by looking at the metre that 5450 feet have passed through during a given time, we send in our bill to your papa for that amount, knowing it must have been burned in the house.

"But most likely the metre doesn't say anything directly about 5450. It says, perhaps, 11025. 'How can that be?' you would think. 'We haven't burned so much as that,' and you haven't--during this one quarter. But after the metre had been inspected at the end of the last quarter, the pointers did not go back to the beginning of the dials and start anew; they kept right on from the place where they were, so that 11025 is the amount you paid for last time and the amount you want to pay for this time, lumped together. Now this is what we do. We turn to our books and see how much you were charged with last time, and subtracting that record from the present record leaves the amount you have used since the last time of payment.

"Then suppose another case. Your metre registers only as far as 100,000. At the end of the last quarter it marked 97850; now it records but 3175. How would you explain that, master Philip?"

Philip looked puzzled a moment, and then said,

"I should think it must have finished out the hundred thousand and begun over again."

"Exactly. And to find the amount for this quarter you would add together the remainder of the hundred thousand (2150) and the 3175, and get 5325, the real record. But I guess you've had arithmetic enough for the present, so we'll go out now and see the gasometer, or gas reservoir."

They all went out of doors then, papa, Mr. Carter, Philip and Kitty, across a narrow court-yard. There was a huge, round box, or drum, with sides as high as those of the carriage-house at home, but with no opening anywhere, "like a great giant's bandbox," thought Kitty. Four stout posts, much taller still than the "bandbox" itself, were set at equal distances around it, and their extremities were joined by stout beams which passed across over the top of the gasometer.

As the children went up nearer to it, they saw it was made of great plates of iron firmly riveted together, and that it did not rest on the ground, as they had supposed, but in the middle of a circular tank of water.

"After the gas has been made and purified and measured," said Mr. Carter, "it is brought by underground pipes into this gasometer, and from here drawn off by other pipes into the houses. The weight of this iron shell bearing down upon the gas, gives pressure or force enough to drive the gas anywhere we wish."

"But why do you put the--the iron thing in water, instead of on the ground?" asked Kitty.

"So as to make it air-tight, and give it a chance to move freely up and down. Of course if the iron shell were empty its own weight would make it sink directly to the bottom of the water-tank and stay there. But gas, you know, is so much lighter than common air that it always makes a very strong effort to rise higher and higher, carrying along whatever encloses it. You saw that illustrated in the balloon that went up last Fourth of July. Now, as the gas from the works pours into the reservoir from beneath, it is strong enough to lift the iron box up a little in the water. Of course that gives a little more room. Then as more gas comes in to take up this room, the gasometer keeps on rising slowly. We make sure of its not rising above the water and letting the gas leak out, by means of the beams you see stretched across above it. They are all ready to hold it down in a safe position if the need should come.

"On the other hand, as the people in town draw off the gas to burn, the gasometer would, of course, tend to sink down gradually. So we have the water-tanks made deep enough to allow for every possible necessity in that direction. In very cold weather we keep the water from freezing by passing a current of hot steam into it. If it should ever freeze, the gasometer might as well be on the ground, for it could not move up and down, or be trusted to keep the gas from leaking out around the edges. With these precautions, however, we know it is perfectly trustworthy."

"I saw it one morning early, when I was out coasting on the hill," said Philip, "and it wasn't more than half as high as it is now."

"A great deal had been drawn off during the night and we had not been making any more during the time to take its place."

"Does it ever get burned out too much?"

"No, there's no danger of it. We make enough to allow a good large margin above what we expect will be used."

The children looked about a little longer, and then, with good-byes and many thanks to Mr. Carter, walked home again with papa, over the crisp, hard snow.

Next week Philip had a composition to write at school. He took "Gas" for his subject, and wrote:

"Gas that you burn is made out of soft coal. They put it in Ovens and cook it until it is not coal any longer. The Ovens are so hot you cant go anywhare near them but the men do With poles and big lether aprons. I would not like to shovle in the coal. I would rather have a Balloon. They use two or three tons every day. it makes coke and Tar and the gas that goes up the pipes. They make the gas clean and mesure it in a big box of water, and tell how much there is by looking at the clock faces in front. Then it goes into a big round box made of iron and then we burn it. but I do not like to smell of it. you must not blow it out for if you do you will get choked. This is all I Remember about gas.

"PHILIP RAYMOND LAWRENCE."

RACING A THUNDER-STORM.

If it had been a yacht in which we were speeding along at the rate of a trifle over a mile per minute, we should have "taken our reckoning," "hove the log," or done something nautical, and the captain would doubtless have reported in regular sea-faring terms that we were off Oil City with Lake Chautauqua so and so many knots on our port quarter.

But it wasn't a yacht, nor a schooner, nor a Conestoga wagon, lightning express or catamaran, in which we were travelling neck and neck with one of the wildest looking storm clouds of hot mid-summer.

No. It was--can you guess it? Yes, a _balloon_.

And this is how it all came about:

Fourth of July came upon the _fifth_ that year, (because of some strange oversight on the part of the folks who first hit upon the plan of dividing time into weeks, somehow the Fourth will, every once in a while, strike Sunday.)

At least it did in Cleveland; and although they were a day late, the Clevelanders determined to have a big time. So they had sent for Prof. Samuel A. King, an aeronaut of distinction. Balloonists, you know, are nearly always called "Professors"--why this is so I don't _profess_ to know. And Prof. King had arrived in Cleveland a few days before, bringing his great balloon, the "Buffalo."

Early upon the morning of the 5th he was on hand with the helpless monster all in a heap tied about with ropes, mixed up with netting and sand-bags, and supplemented with a big basket which looked a good deal like an inverted straw hat made for some huge giant.

The netting was carefully spread out on the Nicholson pavement in the centre of the pretty square that you will remember if you have ever been in Cleveland. The bags were filled from a wagon-load of sand and hitched with snap-catches about the edges. So they stood about in a circle. Then the aerostat, as the great bag is called, was unrolled and spread evenly over this. An oiled-muslin tube was tied to the neck, and its other extreme to a gas main in a hole which some of the workmen had dug for the purpose.

Next the gas was turned on. The bag began to rise, looking at first like ever so many young whales all huddled together. The men now began, under the Professor's direction, to pull the netting over to hold the bag down. The sand-bags were brought closer and set along on either side of the tube. The bag now began to grow round and plump. Groups of lookers-on kept growing, too, until all the square was alive with them. The helpers kept walking around the swelling globe, changing the bags to lower strands of the netting; and so it continued until by two o'clock the balloon was full--that is, allowance was made only for expansion when the balloon should have reached the clouds.

Every few moments the breeze would sway the monster to and fro, and it seemed chafing to break away. Soon after, the basket was tied upon the ring, and into this a great heap of sand-bags was piled, and a lot of ropes, an anchor, an aneroid, thermometer, compass and other accessories tied into the rigging or outside of the basket.

How grandly she stood there, the vast dome towering above the trees, her amber sides bright with decorations and her shapely globe held in leash by the white network--but bless me! here's more than four pages used up, and we haven't started yet.

At precisely four o'clock the Professor's cheery voice was heard all through the square as he sang out, "All aboard!" And his eight companions responded as soon as they could get through the dense crowd that surged on every side.

Now the sole remaining rope which held us to the earth was gripped by a score of eager men.

The order came, "Let go!" The basket was raised a few feet and then settled slowly back. This made the crowd laugh.

"Throw out two bags!" cried the Professor.

Then--then how grandly we lifted! How the cannon roared and bands added their noise to the shouts of the hundred thousand people whose faces were all turned toward our little wicker car!

The writer was sand-man, and following orders, he let out the contents of another bag which fell in a swift gray stream plump down into the midst of a little group of young ladies who were seated on a house-top.

If it happens that _this book_ reaches that family, opportunity is now taken to apologize to those young ladies for thus pouring sand down the backs of their necks.

Well, we sailed along grandly, soon leaving the city far behind--I forgot to say that just as we were leaving, a darkey in a white apron came through the crowd bringing us a hamper of good things. What an appetite this keen upper air gave us, to be sure! We ate and drank and toasted everything and everybody.

Pretty soon one of the boys said, (we were all newspaper men, and spoke of each other as "boys"):

"Listen a moment!"

And we all held our breaths. What supreme silence! the gentle sighing of the wind among the trees a mile below, the barking of dogs, or subdued shouts of excited villagers, was all we could hear--but hark!

We were approaching a small town. In the square, through the gathering twilight, we could discern a crowd, and now there came to us, refined by distance, the familiar notes, played by the village band, of "Up in a balloon, boys!"

We passed over the village, and the Professor pulled the valve cord gently, so we dropped towards the place and cheered in reply.

"Now let's give them a song," said the Professor.

So he began, and we came in on the chorus:

"Oh! 'twas old Sam Simons, And young Sam Simons, Old Sam Simons' son: Now young Sam Simons Is old Sam Simons, For old Sam Simons is gone."

I wish the editor would only give me room to tell you about the scores of funny things that happened that afternoon; but after all, the real adventures happened the next day. So I can only speak briefly of the pretty carrier-pigeons we loosed, which flew swiftly back to Cleveland, bearing our messages to the newspapers--short notes only, to be sure, wrapped about their slender legs, and which appeared in the papers the following morning. One of these I find in the scrap-book before me, for it was returned to me some weeks afterwards. It reads:

"_We've just eaten supper out of our hamper, unhampered by any fears as to breakfast. Supper above the clouds is what I call high living. We can see you yet, but you are only a smoky stain upon the shore of Lake Erie. The Professor says we are to go into camp and then continue trip to-morrow. Good-night._"

It would never do, either, to forget the plucky dog which ran after our drag-rope as it trailed along the ground when we were quite near the earth, and held on with his teeth though we pulled him along over the stubble on his back, and never let go until we had jerked him plumb over a fence.

I've been in all sorts of camps--military camps, hunting camps and camp meetings, but never dreamed of such a thing as a _balloon camp_ before! By the help of some farmers we filled the great basket with stones and then pitched a tent and made a fire at a safe distance. Lines were run to trees in three directions, loosely to give the balloon "play" in case of much wind, and then we all lay down in our blankets and tried to sleep.

At the very first signs of dawn we were up, and there she stood in the still air just like a vision. At sunrise a hospitable farmer invited us to breakfast, and wasn't it good? I'll never forget that coffee.

By eight o'clock quite a large number of country folks had reached the field. Teams were hitched all along the fences. Now the Professor announced that as he wished to make a long trip that day, he should carry plenty of ballast and so could allow only two persons with him. It had been agreed that we should draw cuts, and this was done good-naturedly. The

choice fell upon a photographer, and the writer.

We were sorry indeed to leave our companions behind us, but there was no help for it. So we took our seats in the basket, said good-by, and were off.

Now we went up! _up!_ UP! passing through a thin cloud that made everything below look dim and distant. We were in the region where _November spends the summer_. Whew! how chilly it was. We wrapped our overcoats and blankets close about us and our teeth chattered. Then we rubbed our hands and faces. Why! how queerly they looked and felt.

"Ha! ha! look at the Professor's face. Why! there _ain't a wrinkle left_!" said the photographer.

And so it proved. The aneroid told us that we were over three miles from the ground, and the atmosphere was so diminished in pressure that the internal forces of the body pressed outward and made the skin full and smooth.

One of yesterday's party had provided some large envelopes with long red tails of tissue paper to drop into towns, and we wrote messages and enclosed them in some of these, putting sand in one end, and launched them. We watched them as they shot hither and yon in their swift flight toward the earth. The chance finder was requested to send the contents to the nearest telegraph office, but we never heard from any of them, save one.

About noon we found by comparing our maps with the streams below that we had passed into Pennsylvania; and not long afterwards we descried Oil City set upon the creek, with all its hills covered with derricks and oil tanks.

Speaking of Oil City, reminds me of a rather funny incident: For a couple of years I had been in correspondence with a young man who resided there, and who was also a journalist. His name and mine were just the same. I had promised faithfully to stop and see him at any time chance might bring me near his home. I took one of the envelopes and wrote a _regret_, dropping it over the city. It was picked up in the road and handed to him, but he always insisted that I had broken my promise unreasonably.

At the rate in which Oil City was left behind we knew our pace was very rapid, though to us it all seemed like a dead calm, for we kept just even with the wind.

The Professor said we could reach New England by midnight if the wind held and it didn't grow cloudy; but alas! for the past hour we had been watching a little fleecy nebulous bit of mist that seemed, like a spirit, to spring from the nothingness of the blue ether, growing constantly, and attracting other cloudlets which came toward it from all quarters of the heavens and were swallowed up. A growing, whirling wall of pearly gray mounted and spread its shadow over half the earth.

We threw out sand and mounted above it. Then it arose toward us again. It seemed as though we could reach our hands into its surging depths. Over went seats, baskets, the tent--everything we could spare, and I'm not sure the Professor didn't glare at one of his companions with malicious and deadly intent.

The truth rushed upon us that we were racing with a storm.

It was of vital importance to keep in the sun, for the moment the shadows below could place their chilly spell upon our steed, the gas would chill and condense, and we would drop! drop! swiftly to the earth. At last it came, and we knew it was inevitable. Below us we could hear the crashing of thunder reverberating away into the depths of the black storm masses, and the lightnings every moment lit the weird scene with a grandeur but few mortals have ever witnessed. For a brief moment we hung suspended like Mahomet's coffin in the centre of a great cave of pearl. Shall I ever forget that glimpse of heavenly splendor? A single shaft of sunlight broke through its walls and then died like the last ray of hope. Then downward we rushed! A mile nearer earth within the first minute! As the air grew denser we fell more gradually. Our long drag-rope was out, weighing perhaps three hundred pounds. Now we were closely enshrouded by leaden clouds. The rain ran down the bag in rivulets and trickled upon our heads.

"Look, oh look!" cried the Professor.

We were now below the storm, and along its dense ceiling could see its broad extent. We were above the mountains. No towns nor even houses could be discovered, only dense forests, through which the gale howled as among the rigging of a ship upon a winter sea.

Very quickly our drag-rope touched the tree-tops and began to glide among the swaying pines.

"Hold on at life-ropes!" shouted the Professor, knife in hand.

In another instant the basket gave a dreadful surge; a mass of pine boughs swept about our heads, followed by a strong jerk. The Professor had cut the cord which bound the anchor coil. The anchor had dropped and caught among the limbs. We were safe! No! not yet.

The line must be shortened so we could clear the tree-tops. All three tugged at the rope. Then other lashings were made while the great aerostat plunged about like a wounded leviathan. We were eighty feet from the ground. Two of us found it convenient to go down the drag-rope, but the poor Professor, tall and heavy, preferred to try the tree. This was wet and slippery, as well as full of projecting points of broken branches. About twenty feet from the ground the Professor's clothes caught. He was in a great dilemma.

Amid a good deal of laughter we managed to liberate him, and as he reached the ground he exclaimed: "Well, of all the scrapes I was ever in, this is about the meanest!"