356 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 219. 



not till 1792 that William Murdock devised 

 the means for utilizing the substance and 

 erected a plant at Cornwall, England, with 

 which to light his house and office, and 

 after several years of active agitation by the 

 energetic promoter, F. A. Winsor, that in 

 1810 an Act of Incorporation was obtained 

 for the London and Westminster Gas-Light 

 and Coke Co., and the first installation on a 

 large scale for lighting the street^ of a city 

 and supplying the public began, and through 

 the ingenuity and resources of Samuel 

 Clegg, the engineer, the devices were in- 

 vented or assembled by which the practical 

 manufacture, storage, distribution and use 

 was successfully accomplished. 



From this source the use of gas for light- 

 ing and heating extended over the world, 

 reaching ISTew York in 1834 and bringing 

 in its train comfoi-t and cheer, increased 

 security, and added power to man, so long 

 as the substance was confined to its proper 

 channels and used in proper devices, but 

 carrying also the possibility of working- 

 harm if the vigilance of its keepers was re- 

 laxed and it escaped from bounds; there- 

 fore beginning with the explosion at the 

 lime purifier of the Peter Street Station, 

 London, in 1814, through which Mr. Clegg 

 was injured and two 9-inch walls thrown 

 down, we have a vast army of explosive ac- 

 cidents originating in the ignition of mix- 

 tures of illuminating gas with air. 



Owing to the circumstances attending 

 some of these explosions there has arisen a 

 vulgar opinion that illuminating gas is an 

 explosive ; in fact, in a recent case* counsel 

 cited opinions of courts deciding ' gas ' to 

 be explosive ; yet every chemist knows 

 that it is not explosive pe?- se and that it 

 cannot even be made to ignite unless in 

 contact with air or other supi^orter of com- 

 bustion. 



While we know the truth and may be 

 able to demonstrate the fact, it is very satis- 



* Proo. U. S. Nav. Inst. 22, 6S8 ; 1896. 



factory to be able also to cite the results of 

 experience on a large scale ; therefore the 

 following from the Journal of Gaslighting, 

 August 1, 1871, may be welcome. It ap- 

 pears that at the bombardment of Paris the 

 Governor of the city feared that the gas 

 holders of La Villette would endanger the 

 fortifications. He was assured that there 

 was not the smallest risk ; that if a pro- 

 jectile penetrated a gas holder and set fire 

 to the gas the latter would only burn out 

 as a jet of flame, and that there could be no 

 such thing as an explosion, since the con- 

 stant pressure would effectually prevent 

 any access of air." Shortly after a shell 

 pierced the holder at Ivry and lighted the 

 gas. There was a huge jet of flame for 

 eight minutes ; the holder sank slowlj' 

 and all was over. At La Villette a shell 

 penetrated a filled gas holder and burst 

 in the interior without igniting the gas. 

 At Vaugirard another shell entered, and 

 again there was neither ignition nor ex- 

 plosion. 



Many of the accidents from coal gas and 

 its congeners, ' water gas,' ' producer gas,' 

 and ' generator gas,' have been due to the 

 escape of the gases from the interred pipes 

 and mains from which they have reached 

 sewers, cesspools, cellars and other enclosed 

 places, for, though these gas conduits may 

 be sound and tight when laid, leakage will 

 in time be caused by the corrosive action of 

 materials in the soil, by electrolysis, by 

 fluctuations in temperature, by settlement 

 in filled ground and by seismic changes.* 

 The extent of this leakage from the mains 

 in New York City was discussed in a Legis- 

 lative investigation some nine years ago, 

 and, while the Chemist and Health Depart- 

 ment claimed that ten per cent, of the en- 

 tire annual product or one thousand million 

 cubic feet escaped, the gas companies' rep- 

 resentatives, denied that more than one 

 hundred million feet were lost in each year. 



* Milne, McClure's Magazine, 11, 37-S7 ; 1898. 



