GAS-LIGHTING 



G A SCO NY 



105 



process the steam cools down the glowing coke ; 

 consequently air must be sent through the coke at 

 intervals (about 4 minutes steum and 10 ininuteH 

 air) in order to restore its glow ; and a series of 

 producers must be so conjoined as to act alternately 

 with one another, before the process can result in 

 aeontinaotusuppryof water-gas. The by-product, 

 producer gas, which may be produced in large 

 quantities (110,000 cubic feet, at 26,900 calories 

 per 1000) by regulating the supply of air while 

 the coke-glow is being worked up, may be used 

 for toilers or for gas-engines. When it is so util- 

 i-'-'l, the net cost of making simple water-gas is 

 between 5d. and 6d. per 1000 cubic feet, about 8d. 

 per 1000 less than coal-gas. Water-gas gives on 

 combustion an extremely high temperature, which 

 saves time in furnace work ; gold, silver, and 

 copper, and even an alloy of 70 parts of gold and 

 30 of platinum, are readily melted in quantity by 

 it ; hence for bringing objects such as Fahneh- 

 ii'l m's combs (a series of rods of magnesia) into 

 brilliant luminous incandescence, for welding, or for 

 metallurgical operations involving hijjh tempera- 

 tures, it is very suitable ; and in gas-engines it works 

 cleanly. When water-gas is used with Fahnehjelm 

 combs, the quantity of gas used is ( Dr F. Fischer) 

 180 litres, or 6 cubic feet per hour, the light being, 

 when the burner is new, 22 to 24 candles, and after 

 60 hours, reduced to 16. The combs ( 15s. per hun- 

 dred) require renewal after 100 hours' use. As a 

 carrier of heat, coal-gas is twice as effective in 

 respect of quantity of heat ; its heating-power is 

 about 150,000 calories per 1000 cubic feet, which 

 represents about 20 per cent, of the whole heat of 

 the coal distilled, or about 50 per cent, after allow- 

 ing for the heating-power retained in the coke, 

 breeze, and tar ; and this concentration of heating- 

 power in smaller bulk may in some cases transfer 

 the advantage of cheapness, through smaller cost 

 of distribution, to coal-gas. Water-gas is much 

 used in the United States. It is supplied to houses, 

 either pure or mixed with the coal-gas produced in 

 the manufacture of the coke from which the water- 

 gas is made, and it is then known as ' fuel-gas ;' 

 out more generally it is carburetted by being ex- 

 posed to a high temperature along with naphtha or 

 petroleum vapours, and the resultant mixture is 

 employed as illuminating gas. Unfortunately the 

 hign percentage of carbonic oxide, which is odour- 

 less, has caused a high death-roll. 



VIII. Acetylene. This gas, C^tlz, long a chemical 

 curiosity merely, is now prepared on a large scale 

 by the action of water upon calcium carbide, 

 which is made by exposing a mixture of lime and 

 carbon to the temperature of the electric arc in the 

 electric furnace. The carbon unites with the 

 hydrogen of the water, forming acetylene ; the 

 calcium with the oxygen, forming lime, which, as 

 slaked lime, remains in the water. This gas gives, 

 with a half cubic-foot burner, an intensely white 

 solid-looking flame of 24 candle-power. For en- 

 richment its enrichment value is about 100 candles 

 for about the first five candles of additional illumin- 

 ating power; after which the effect of dilution 

 wears off, and the enrichment value may go up to 

 about 150. Sufficiently dilute pure acetylene is 

 not appreciably poisonous ; but it has a character- 

 istic disagreeable odour, partly due, when it is made 

 from carbide, to traces or phbsphuretted hydrogen. 

 A ton of carbide produces about 1 1 ,000 cubic reet 

 of acetylene ; and though estimates have been 

 published which show a cost of 4 per ton, the 

 manufacturers have not been able, in Europe, to 

 put it on the market at less than 405s. a ton ( 1896 ). 



IX. Natural Gas issues from the earth in many 

 places the eternal fires at Baku (q.v.), for example; 

 from other gas-wells in the Caucasus, natural or 

 opened in boring for oil ; in China ; but principally 



in North America. At Fredonia, New York Htate, 

 gas escaping from the earth was used in 1821. In 

 1859 boring for oil in Pennsylvania and elsewhere 

 became general ; the gas associated with thin wan con- 

 veyed to a distance and burned as a nuisance. The 

 general utilisation of the gas began in 1872 at Fair- 

 view, Butler County, Pennsylvania. Many of the 

 gas-wells lasted only four or five years. In 1874 the 

 gas was used in iron-smelting, and by 1884 one I'm - 

 burg company used gas equivalent to the produce 

 of 400 tons of coal a day. Pitteburg, formerly 

 lying under a continuous black pall of smoke, 

 became bright and clear. But now the supply has 

 fallen off, and Pittsburg has been supplied with 

 gas from West Virginia, at a distance of 102 miles 

 (and see above at p. 98). Chicago is supplied with 

 natural gas from Greeritown, I n-l. . at a distance of 

 116 miles. Nearly all the gas obtained is now dis- 

 tributed by pipes and pumping engines, and in the 

 United States of America about 400 million cubic 

 feet per day are thus distributed. Natural gas is 

 also found "by boring elsewhere in Pennsylvania, 

 in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Kansas, the 

 Dakotas, and at Los Angeles in California. The 

 North American gas consists mainly of marsh-gas ; 

 sometimes it contains nothing else than marsh-gas 

 and a little carbonic acid ; sometimes there are 

 various percentages of hydrogen, ethylene, traces 

 of carbonic oxide, nitrogen, oxygen, or heavy 

 hydrocarbons. The Baku gas contains 3 per cent, 

 or heavy hydrocarbons, and is more regularly 

 deficient in hydrogen. The American gas is used for 

 all metallurgical processes except the blast-furnace, 

 and is very convenient for glass-making. In some 

 places the gas is carburetted or used with Fahneh- 

 jelm's combs. Natural gas may possibly underlie 

 the English salt-beds. 



See King's work on coal-gas edited by Newbigging, 

 whose Gas Managers' Handbook is also valuable ; "Wank- 

 lyn's Gas Engineers' Chemical Manual, and Butterfield, 

 Gas Manufacture (1896) for chemistry ; Field's A nalysi*, 

 and the Gas World's yearly analyses. 



Gascoigne, SIR WILLIAM (1350-1419), judge, 

 was appointed on the accession of Henry IV. a 

 justice in the Court of Common Pleas, and in 

 November 1400 was raised to be Chief-justice of 

 the King's Bench. He was evidently a fearless 

 judge, as he refused to obey the king's command 

 to sentence to death Archbishop Scrope and Mow- 

 bray after the northern insurrection in 1405. Nine 

 days after the death of Henry IV. a successor was 

 appointed to his office, which disposes of the fiction 

 that Henry V. continued him in it (Shakespeare's 

 Henry IV., V. ii. 102-121). The famous story of 

 his encounter with the dissolute young prince Hal 

 lacks historical support. Mr Croft and Mr Solly 

 Flood believe it originated in the Rolls entry under 

 Edward I., that the prince, afterwards Edward II., 

 was expelled from the court for half a year, for 

 insulting one of his father's ministers. The story 

 as ascribed to Prince Hal first appears in Elyot 

 (1531). Hall has the story also, and after him 

 Holinshed, although none of the three, like Shake- 

 speare, mentions the judge by name. 



See Croft's edition of Elyot's Boke named the Governour 

 (1880), and Church's Henry V. (1889). 



CJascony (Lat. Vasconia), an ancient district 

 in south-western France, situated between the Bay 

 of Biscay, the river Garonne, and the Western 

 Pyrenees. The total area is over 10,000 sq. in.; 

 its inhabitants, numbering about a million, have 

 preserved their dialect, customs, and individuality. 

 The Gascon is little in stature ami thin, but strong 

 and lithe in frame : ambitious and enterprising, but 

 passionate and given to boasting and exaggeration. 

 Hence the name Gasronade has gone into litera- 

 ture as a synonym for harmless vapouring. The 

 Gascons, moreover, are quick-witted, cheerful, and 



