HOW GAS IS MADE—­ILLUMINATING OILS AND BYE-PRODUCTS.

Accustomed as we are at the present day to see street after street of well-lighted thoroughfares, brilliantly illuminated by gas-lamps maintained by public authority, we can scarcely appreciate the fact that the use of gas is, comparatively speaking, of but recent growth, and that, like the use of coal itself, it has not yet existed a century in public favour.  Valuable as coal is in very many different ways, perhaps next in value to its actual use as fuel, ranks the use of the immediate product of its distillation—­viz., gas; and although gas is in some respects waning before the march of the electric light in our day, yet, even as gas at no time has altogether superseded old-fashioned oil, so we need not anticipate a time when gas in turn will be likely to be superseded by the electric light, there being many uses to which the one may be put, to which the latter would be altogether inapplicable; for, in the words of Dr Siemens, assuming the cost of electric light to be practically the same as gas, the preference for one or other would in each application be decided upon grounds of relative convenience, but gas-lighting would hold its own as the poor man’s friend.  Gas is an institution of the utmost value to the artisan; it requires hardly any attention, is supplied upon regulated terms, and gives, with what should be a cheerful light, a genial warmth, which often saves the lighting of a fire.

The revolution which gas has made in the appearance of the streets, where formerly the only illumination was that provided by each householder, who, according to his means, hung out a more or less efficient lantern, and consequently a more or less smoky one, cannot fail also to have brought about a revolution in the social aspects of the streets, and therefore is worthy to be ranked as a social reforming agent; and some slight knowledge of the process of its manufacture, such as it is here proposed to give, should be in the possession of every educated individual.  Yet the subjects which must be dealt with in this chapter are so numerous and of such general interest, that we shall be unable to enter more than superficially into any one part of the whole, but shall strive to give a clear and comprehensive view, which shall satisfy the inquirer who is not a specialist.

The credit of the first attempt at utilising the gaseous product of coal for illumination appears to be due to Murdock, an engineer at Redruth, who, in 1792, introduced it into his house and offices, and who, ten years afterwards, as the result of numerous experiments which he made with a view to its utilisation, made a public display at Birmingham on the occasion of the Peace of Amiens, in 1802.