ccxxx GENERAL SUMMAKY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



in the seaboard cities, where coal costs from four to five dollars a 

 ton, by the Lowe or any other process at a cost of fifteen cents per 

 1000 feet, it must be evident that a new era in the development of 

 industry is dawning upon us. It is not too much to expect that 

 under these circumstances gas would take the place of coal for most 

 uses. Its cleanliness, even if there were no great economy, would 

 secure that result for domestic use ; and the increased eflSciency and 

 convenience of gas, and the improved quality of the products obtain- 

 ed from it, would be sufiicient to secure its adoption for manufactur- 

 ing and smelting purposes. The highest economy in the use of fuel 

 consists in supplying to the furnace, where the work is to be done, 

 combustible gases only; . . . and since water-gas consists of car- 

 bonic oxide and hydrogen only, it seems quite evident that this is 

 as favorable a condition in which to use a fuel as it is possible to 

 obtain in the jDresent state of our knowledge." 



From the manifest tendency of modern utilitarianism to realize in 

 practice the results that have been demonstrated to be possible in 

 theory, we risk very little in the assertion that "the fuel of the fut- 

 ure" will be gaseous; manufactured in the cities in large central 

 establishments, distributed and "laid on" in our mills, factories, 

 workshops, parlors, and kitchens, just as lighting-gas and water are 

 at present supplied ; and it is not exaggerating the importance of 

 tl\e process dwelt upon in the foregoing to affirm that it must be 

 looked upon as having given a decided impetus to the world's prog- 

 ress in this direction. 



