222 Mr. Ricardo on the Advantages [March, 



be as profuse or as economical as you please, and you may 

 have double or treble the light at the same cost as tallow can- 

 dles ; four or five times as much if compared with sperm oil, and 

 above twelve times as much if the comparison be made with wax 

 candles. 



I know not that any thing can be more satisfactory in favour 

 of any new improvement than a successful issue of a fair and 

 impartial trial ; and the results which I have now stated, of a 

 year's trial at the Oldford Works, may be equally applicable to 

 any other establishment of a similar description. It can hardly 

 be erected on more disadvantageous ground ; and if similar suc- 

 cess should not ensue, it cannot arise from the planning and 

 execution of the work, but from some other cause wholly uncon- 

 nected with the nature of the establishment, either from want of 

 consumption, or from improper management, and to which any 

 other concern is equally liable. The great question in the form- 

 ation of a gas company is, Which is most eligible, coal or oil ? 

 Which is likely to absorb the least capital ? Which is likely to 

 promise the fairest return ? Which is likely to be attended with 

 least loss in case of failure? Which is likely to afford the greatest 

 satisfaction to consumers in general ? To these queries, 1 do not 

 hesitate for one single moment answering oil gas. There is not 

 a single point in which it has not the most decided advantage ; 

 and it is only because these advantages are not generally 

 known, or that they are disallowed owing to the gross misstate- 

 ments of those interested, that oil gas is not universally adopted. 

 All means are resorted to to cry down oil gas ; and I under- 

 stand that in some of the provincial papers a warm contest 

 has been kept up, and that the opinions of scientific men have 

 been brought forward to prove the incorrectness of the state- 

 ments concerning the comparative illuminating powers of the 

 two gases. It would be difficult to account for the discrepancy 

 of opinion which exists on this subject (some estimating it as 

 one to two; others as one to two and a half ; some again as 

 one to three), if we did not know that the goodness of oil 

 gas depends upon the construction of the apparatus, and 

 the mode of using it, and that oil gas of all the qualities 

 just mentioned may be produced. The gas upon which I have 

 experimented, and upon which the observations I have before 

 made were founded, was produced from works upon a large 

 scale, erected by Messrs. Taylor and Martineau ; and the pecu- 

 liar excellence of their arrangement is, that the gas produced 

 from the action of their apparatus and retorts is always of 

 a superior quality, which was most satisfactorily proved by Dr. 

 Henry, in his paper read before the Royal Society. It is need- 

 less for me here to enter into a detail of experiments which I 

 was trying, and which, for the reasons I have before given, I 

 was reluctantly obliged to give up. I may, perhaps, take some 

 future opportunity of entering more fully into that subject ; for 



