106 REVIEW OE LIGHTING SYSTEMS. 



undertake the work quite successfully. The writer knows of at least one case where a suction-gas 

 electric plant was put into the gardener s charge. This was before the days of the modern oil and petrol 

 engines, which have so greatly simplified this work. Still, it is undoubtedly a fact that more attendance 

 is required for an electric plant and more expenditure on lubricating oil, stores and maintenance of 

 battery than with either of the other two systems. Electricity, however, has the great advantage of 

 giving a light which neither vitiates the air nor fouls the decorations, and which can be disposed of in such 

 a manner as not to jar with the various historical styles of decoration found in so many country houses. 

 This latter advantage is shared by acetylene, which, in the case of a small, old-fashioned country house, 

 is an ideal method of lighting, for the candle and lantern fittings that can be obtained for use with this 

 gas give a perfect illusive effect, and do not jar in the least with an antique decorative scheme. Of the 

 three systems acetylene has, generally speaking, the simplest machinery ; a fact of some importance when 

 considering the lighting of a small establishment. Air-gas necessitates the use of the incandescent 

 mantle, but where this is not inconsistent with the scheme of decoration it will probably be found to be 

 the cheapest in fuel consumption, though slightly dearer than acetylene in first cost. It should be noted 

 that neither of these gases fouls the decorations and vitiates the air to anything like the same extent as 

 ordinary coal-gas. 



If mechanical power is required for pumping water, chaff-cutting, etc., electricity is the only 

 system of the three which can provide it cheaply and conveniently. In the case of some large establish 

 ments where a coal-gas plant was in use before the advent of electricity it has been found necessary, even 

 after the installation of the electric plant, to run the gas plant for the sake of the cookers in the kitchen 

 and a few heating stoves about the house. This is an enormously costly proceeding, and now the coal-gas 

 plant is being very generally replaced by an electrically driven air-gas plant, which, being absolutely 

 automatic in its action, reduces the cost of attendance to practically nothing, and is very much 

 cheaper to run in all respects. MAURICE HIRD 



