82 SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



that has yet been placed before the public for all purposes 

 where exceptionally intense illumination (as in lighthouses) 

 is not demanded.* 



Comparing electric with gas-lighting, the hopeful be- 

 lievers in progressive improvement appear to forget that 

 gas- making and gas-lighting are as susceptible of further 

 improvement as electric lighting, and that, as a matter of 

 fact, its practical progress during the last forty years is in- 

 comparably greater than that of the electric light. I refer 

 more particularly to the practical and crucial question of 

 economy. The bi-products, the ammoniacal salts, the 

 liquid hydrocarbons, and their derivatives, have been 

 developed into so many useful forms by the achievements 

 of modern chemistry, that these, with the coke, are of 

 sufficient value to cover the whole cost of manufacture, 

 and leave the gas itself as a volatile residuum that costs 

 nothing. It would actually and practically cost nothing, 

 and might be profitably delivered to the burners of gas 

 consumers (of far better quality than now supplied in 

 London) at one shilling per thousand cubic feet, if gas- 

 making were conducted on sound commercial principles, 

 that is, if it were not a corporate monopoly, and were sub- 

 ject to the wholesome stimulating influence of free compe- 

 tition and private enterprise. As it is, our gas and the 

 price we pay for it are absurdities ; and all calculations 

 respecting the comparative cost of new methods of illumi- 

 nation should be based not on what we do pay per candle- 

 power of gas-light, but what we ought to pay and should 

 pay if the gas companies were subjected to desirable compe- 

 tition, or visited with the national confiscation I consider 

 they deserve. 



Having had considerable practical experience in the 

 commercial distillation of coal for the sake of its liquid 



*The burnt card, burnt bamboo, and other flimsy incandescent 

 threads now (1883) in vogue, merely represent Starr's preliminary 

 failures prior to his adoption of the hard adamantine stick of retort- 

 carbon, which I suppose will be duly re-invented, patented again, 

 and form the basis of new Limited Companies, when the present 

 have collapsed. 



