M. Juste Preuss on Oil Gas. 203 



made various trials, and the following process seems to me to 

 be the best. 



Pour some adhesive solution or tincture over the powder, 

 and mix it with it into a stiff kind of liquid. Take with a brush 

 or a stick a large drop of it, and apply it against the bottom of 

 the cap. 



This method is both quick and free from danger ; whilst on 

 filling with the dry detonating powder, the least careless touch 

 may produce an explosion. 



In order to prevent the corrosion of the cylinder, and its 

 becoming useless by the formation of sulphuret of iron (an evil 

 very common with ii'on touch-holes, and caused more by the 

 action of the gun-powder than by that of the igniting sub- 

 stance), the inside of the cylinder should be lined with a metal 

 which will neither oxidate, nor easily combine with the ingre- 

 dients of the powder. 



XXVIII. On Oil Gas*. By M. Juste Preuss, resident in 

 Pai'iSy formerly Inspector of' Rivers and Fmests of the Do- 

 maine Extraordinaire in Germany^ and Member of several 

 learned Societies. 

 'T^HE prevalence of lighting with coal gas had gone on with 

 -*• so much rapidity in England before Messrs. John and 

 Philip Taylor of London had conceived the happy idea of 

 making gas by means of oil, that after they had carried 

 this branch of industry to a certain degree of perfection, the 

 quarters of the metropolis and the provincial towns, where , 

 lighting with gas would have presented advantages, were al- 

 ready occupied by coal gas. The progress of the use of oil 

 gas has necessarily been slow : it was first adopted in dwell- 

 ing-houses and in gentlemen's seats, where they soon learned 

 to esteem it on account of its salubrity and the beauty of its 

 light, and because it does not change the gildings, plate, and 

 stuffs, nor the paint nor pictures, as coal gas often does. Af- 

 terwards it was adopted in manufactories; still later in small 

 towns and on high roads ; and at present it is chosen in 

 preference, even in the provinces which abound in coal pits, 

 for the lighting of towns of the first order, to the great chagrin, 

 and Jiotwithstanding the opposition and clamours, of the coal 



* Extracted from the Mcssagcrdes Sciences et des Arts, Decembre 1824. 



This scientific selection is published by the Royal Societies of the Fine 

 Arts and of Agriculture at Ghent. It forms annually one volume of 

 tliirty sheets, in Svo., embellished with several engravings, and is published 

 in numbers, of from two to eight sheets, at Ghent, by P. F. De Goesin-Ver- 

 hae<jhe, No. .37, Ilautport-street, at fifteen francs to subscribers. 



C c 2 gas 



