98 THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 



LIQUID GAS IN SWITZERLAND. 



Practical Results of Factory Experiments Near Zurich. 



Responding to instructions, Consul-General R. E. Mansfield, of 

 Zurich, has investigated and prepared the following account of the 

 operations in Switzerland of the modern method of making liquid 

 gas and of its utilization: 



While the principle of producing liquid gas was discovered nearly 

 a century ago, and such chemists as Faraday (1823), Andrews (1861), 

 and scientific investigators like Cailletet, of Paris, and Pictet, of 

 Geneva (1877), left valuable records relating to the subject, they 

 succeeded in establishing only a theory that "all gases pass into a 

 liquid condition, provided that they are submitted to a sufficiently low 

 temperature and to a sufficiently high pressure." To make a prac- 

 tical application of this theory, and work out a process by which 

 liquid gas could be utilized for general purposes and produced at a 

 cost that would make it a commodity of commercial value, has occu- 

 pied the attention of various inventors in recent years. 



The constantly increasing scarcity of natural fuels, and the conse- 

 quent advance in the cost have increased proportionately the interest in 

 and the importance of substitute or artificial fuels or substances for 

 producing light and heat. 



The first plant for the manufacture of liquid gas as a commercial 

 commodity was established in Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1904, under a 

 process invented by Herr Blau. Considerable success has attended 

 the enterprise, a great many installations for heating and lighting 

 having been made by the company in Germany, and some of the 

 German railways have adopted it as a means of lighting passenger 

 coaches. 



In 1907 a stock company for the manufacture of liquid gas was 

 organized in Zurich, under the name of the "Swiss Liquid Gas Com- 

 pany" (Schweizer Fluessig-Gas-Fabrik, L. Wolf, A. G.), and a fac- 

 tory, with a capacity of 480 pounds of liquid gas a day, was established 

 at Bassersdorf, near Zurich. The apparatus for the purpose of trans- 

 forming crude oil into liquid gas, with which the factory is equipped, 

 is the invention of L. Wolf, a resident of the village of Bassersdorf. 

 The product is described by the company as "a transportable liquid, 

 which is simply evaporated as used, and can be used for lighting, 

 heating, cooking, soldering, and welding purposes." 



