INTRODUCTION OF LIGHTING BY COAL-GAS. 



of water to be poured on the fire, by which it was presently quenched, as well as my 

 companions' laughter was stopped, who began to think the water did not burn. 



" I did not perceive the flame to be discoloured like that of sulphureous bodies, nor to 

 have any manifest scent with it. The fumes, when they broke out of the earth and 

 prest against my hand, were not, to my best remembrance, at all hot." 



The next mention we find of the presence of an " elastic inflammable air " 

 in coal is in the account of some experiments made by Dr. Stephen Hales, 

 for the production of elastic fluids from a great number of substances, and are 

 related in the first volume of his " Vegetable Statics," published in 1726. 



In 1 733 Sir James Lowther communicated a paper to the Royal Society 

 upon the damp air issuing from the shaft of a coal-mine near Whitehaven. 

 After his men had sunk the pit to the depth of forty-two fathoms, instead of 

 finding water as they expected, they were surprised by a rush of air, which 

 caught fire on a candle being held towards it : it burned very fiercely with a 

 flame about one yard in diameter, and two yards high, which frightened the 

 workmen so that they immediately went up the pit, after extinguishing the 

 flame by beating it out with their hats. The steward of the works being made 

 acquainted with the circumstance, went down the pit himself, and again 

 lighted the air, which had increased in volume ; it burned fiercely as before, the 

 flame being blue at the bottom and more white towards the top : they then ex- 

 tinguished it in the same manner, made a greater opening in the black stone 

 bed, and again fired the air : the flame was a full yard in diameter and about 

 three yards high, and soon heated the pit to so great a degree that they made 

 all possible haste to put out the flame, which this time could only be effected 

 with the assistance of a spout of water. It was found necessary to make a tube 

 to carry off the inflammable air ; this tube projected four feet above the top 

 of the pit, and through it the gas discharged itself, without sensibly diminish- 

 ing in its strength or lessening in its quantity during the two years that elapsed 

 between the sinking of the shaft and Sir James Lowther's report to the Royal 

 Society. Bladders were filled with gas from this tube, which were carried 

 away, and the gas burned through a small pipe inserted in the bladder. 



The Rev. Dr. John Clayton, dean of Kildare, made some experiments on the 

 " spirit of coal "; he was one of the first who actually distilled coal in a close 

 vessel, and burned the gas thus obtained from the bladders in which it was 

 collected. These experiments are related in the Philosophical Transactions 

 for 1739, in an extract from a letter by the Rev. Dr. John Clayton, as follows. 



B2 



