30 



PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 

 PROCEEDINGS IN THE ATHENJEUM. 



NOVEMBER 28TH.- Mr. ADAMS, On the Rise and Progress of Gas 

 Illumination. 



AFTER some prelimiDary observations, the Lecturer stated that the 

 first record of the substance now called inflammable air or gas arose 

 from an accidental circumstance, recorded in the Trans. Roy. Soc., 

 1667, of which the following is the substance. Mr. T. Shirley, on 

 returning from a journey to his house in Wigan, was informed that 

 a spring of water in the neighbourhood of the town burned like oil ; 

 he visited the place himself and applied a light, upon which a sud- 

 den flame appeared which burned vigorously. Mr Shirley stated, 

 as his opinion, that the burning proceeded from the eruption of some 

 bituminous or sulphurous fumes from under ground, the place being 

 about 30 or 40 yards from the mouth of a coal pit. The lecturer 

 stated that there could be no doubt but that this vigorous flame 

 proceeded from carburetted hydrogen gas, and that from this acci- 

 dental circumstance gas lighting dates its origin. 



In 1726 Dr. Stephen Hales experimented on the elasticity of this 

 gas, but its inflammable properties were not even hinted at, however 

 an account is recorded in the Phil. Trans., for 1733, of much greater 

 importance to science than either of the preceeding, and which also 

 originated in an accidental circumstance. Sir J. Lowther, Bart., in 

 sinking a shaft to drain one of his collieries at Whitehaven, had 

 proceeded to a certain depth when, contrary to expectation, but little 

 water was found and, through this water, damp corrupted air bub- 

 bled up, which burned fiercely when the workmen applied a candle 

 to it; they were however alarmed and, having beat out the flame 

 with their hats, retreated from the shaft : when the place was visited 

 by the steward, a short time afterwards, the gas had enlarged the 

 aperture, through which it issued, and on being ignited produced a 

 flame, three feet in diameter and nine feet high, which would have 

 destroyed the steward and miners had they not, at hand, a plentiful 

 supply of water wherewith to extinguish it. This gas continued to dis- 

 charge itself through a wooden trunk, fixed in the shaft, for two years 

 and nine months afterwards ; bladders were filled with it and sent to the 

 Royal Society, before which body its inflammability was displayed, 

 yet, strange to say, the philosophers of that day did not seem to have 

 any idea of its applicability to the purposes of illumination. 



In the Phil. Trans, for the year 1739 aro detailed some experiments, 

 made by Dr. Jn. Clayton, Dean of KikUire, on the distillation of Pit 



