INDUSTRIAL PKOGRESS DURING THE YEAR 187G. ccxxix 



tors, is not at all surprising. The great and obvious advantage of 

 gaseous over solid fuel leaving the question of convenience out of 

 sight resides in the fact that the nature of the combustible per- 

 mits of its instant and jjerfect intermixture with the air, by which a 

 vastly more perfect combustion and the attainment of the highest 

 l^ossible temiDcrature is insured elements of the most vital impor- 

 tance in the majority of metallurgical and engineering ojDerations 

 requiring the use of fuel. These advantages find excellent illustration 

 in the gas-furnaces of Siemens and others, which the best metallur- 

 gical authorities agree in pronouncing to be the least w^asteful of all 

 the methods heretofore devised for the consumption of fuel. In 

 these furnaces, however, while acknowledging their eminent value, 

 the atmospheric system of gasifying the fuel preliminary to its com- 

 bustion is attended with the introduction into the furnace, and con- 

 sequently into the gaseous product, of large volumes of inert nitro- 

 gen, which not only reduces the temperature of the furnace, but 

 largely reduces the heating power of the gaseous product. The 

 highest economy would, of course, be attained by any system by 

 which the rapid gasification of the coal could be effected without 

 the introduction of non-combustible diluents into the combustion- 

 chamber. And it is just in the realization of this great desideratum 

 of the metallurgist that the Lowe system, by which enormous vol- 

 umes of heating-gas hydrogen and carbonic oxide are rapidly, 

 cheaply, and continuously produced by the mutual introduction of 

 superheated steam and incandescent carbon, claims attention. 



The relation of this process to the province of illumination we 

 have shown in another place. That we may not appear to be ex- 

 aggerating its importance by dwelling ujjon it at too great length, 

 we will close our discussion of the subject by a few quotations from 

 one of the leading technical journals of the country:* "It is not of 

 illuminating-gas, however, that we would now speak, but of heating- 

 gas, for we are convinced that the question of the economical pro- 

 duction of a good heating-gas once settled, the business of manu- 

 facturing it will greatly overshadow^ by its enormous importance, 

 that of making illuminating-gas. There is scarcely a use to which 

 we apply coal in our cities that would not he benefited by the sub- 

 stitution of heating-gas, if the price were sufficiently low. It is said 

 that w^ater-gas, manufactured according to the Lowe system, can be 

 made at a cost not to exceed fifteen cents per 1000 cubic feet, a fig- 

 ure which would allow of its distribution, in the enormous quantities 

 required for domestic and manufacturing purposes, at a very low 

 price, say, fifty cents per 1000 feet. The calorific value of this fuel 

 calls for special attention, . . . for if water-gas, having more than 

 four times the calorific value of Siemens' gas, can be produced here 



* Engineering and ITining Journal, XXII., 298 et seq. 



