THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August G, 1870. 
114 
the gas from sulphur was to he obtained by “scrub¬ 
bing,” or washing with ammoniacal liquor. Indeed, 
some authorities have publicly recommended that many 
thousand gallons of the liquor should be pumped into 
the scrubbers per hour. But the results of the re¬ 
ferees’ experiments, as yet obtained, show that, whe¬ 
ther or not this opinion be theoretically correct, it is 
totally wrong as regards the practical efforts produced 
in the scrubbers in general use.* 
The experiments were made with the various kinds of 
scrubbers employed by the several Companies. These 
scrubbers differ, to some extent, from one another in the 
arrangement of the scrubbing materials, especially as 
regards the nature and the distribution of the liquid em¬ 
ployed. They also differ as regards the substances with 
which the scrubbers are filled: in most cases coke, or 
fragments of brick, being used, while in Mr. Livesey’s 
scrubber (from which the best results were obtained) 
the substance employed is a network of thin boards of 
wood, through which, as in the other forms of the 
scrubber, water or ammoniacal liquor trickles down 
slowly through the ascending current of the gas. The 
experiments were conducted on a uniform system, as 
follows:—Just before the gas entered the scrubbers a 
small portion of it was drawn off, and made to pass 
through a box containing oxide of iron, so as wholly to 
remove the sulphuretted hydrogen; thereafter it was 
tested for sulphur. In like manner, as the gas emerged 
from the scrubbers a portion of it was similarly drawn 
off, and, after being purified from sulphuretted hydro¬ 
gen, was tested for sulphur. The summary in the second 
column of this page will suffice for the present to show the 
results of these experiments so far as they have gone. 
Here it appears that only in one case did the scrub¬ 
bers materially reduce the amount of “sulphur” [i.e. 
sulphur-compounds other than sulphuretted hydrogen), 
and in the majority of instances more sulphur was found 
in the gas when it emerged from the scrubbers than be¬ 
fore it entered them! These facts were so unexpected 
and they are so contradictory of the long-established 
Summary of the Results of Experiments for ascertaining the 
effect of Scrubbers upon the Quantity of Sulphur-com¬ 
pounds in Gas. 
Average of 
Amount of Sul¬ 
phur at Inlet 
of Scrubbers. 
Amount of Sul¬ 
phur at Outlet. 
Increase or De¬ 
crease at Out¬ 
let. 
Great Central Company . 
29 expts. 
23-55 
28-63 
+ 5-06 
Imperial Gas Co. (Fulham) 
26 „ 
21-18 
20-83 
- -35 
Ditto (St. Pancras) 
4 „ 
24-7 
24-8 
+- *1 
Ditto (Shoreditch) 
3 „ 
26-35 
25-30 
-1-5 
City of London Company . 
3 „ 
22-86 
25-41 
+ 2-55 
South Metropolitan Co. 
5 „ 
33-03 
28-98 
-4-05 
Chartered Co. (Westmin.) 
11 „ 
24-62 
26-07 
+ 1-45 
opinions and practice of gas-engineers,* that one of the 
gas-engineers tore up the results of his testings (which 
accordingly do not appear in the above table), thinking 
that he would only stultify himself by sending in re¬ 
turns which, he fancied, must be due to some mistake on 
his part, little expecting that they would be amply cor¬ 
roborated by the facts obtained by the other gas-engi¬ 
neers engaged in the inquiry. 
There is no question as to the power of oxide of iron 
and lime to withdraw a large proportion of sulphur from 
gas under certain circumstances; but it is evident from 
the facts already obtained in the referees’ experiments, that 
an adequate knowledge of how to apply these purifying 
materials in gasworks, so as to produce satisfactory re¬ 
sults, has yet to be acquired. 
As shown by the reports of the testings made by Dr. 
Letheby at the Corporation’s testing-place, previous to 
the Act of 1868,—and thereafter from the daily testings 
in the five testing-stations established in conformity with 
the instructions of the referees under that Act,—the 
amount of sulphur in the gas of the Chartered, the Central, 
and the City companies has averaged as follows:— 
Dr. Lcthebfs Occasional Testings —1864-68. 
Year. 
Central. 
ClTT. 
Chartered. 
Curtain Road. 
Brick Lane. 
Westminster. 
1864- 5 .... 
1865- 6 .... 
1866- 7 .... 
1867- 8 .... 
1868, Feb. to Aug. 
Max. 
35-0 
32-9 
29-93 
34-61 
32-09 
Min. 
16-6 
14-4 
14-79 
7- 43 
8- 85 
Avrge. 
21-9 
24-1 
21-39 
17-44 
14-62 
Max. 
29-7 
28-2 
24- 97 
35-34 
25- 11 
Min. 
14-5 
14-2 
7-12 
9-19 
10-56 
Avrge. 
19-4 
19-6 
17-23 
19-06 
17-24 
Max. 
33-7 
30- 7 
27-80 
31- 96 
23-90 
Min. 
14-4 
13- 0 
10-43 
8-79 
14- 27 
Avrge. 
20-1 
21-2 
17-77 
19-57 
19-03 
Max. 
Min. 
Avrge. 
Max. 
Min. 
Avrge. 
1869, Aug. to Dec. 
1870, 6 Months . 
37-02 
24-9 
4-01 
3-4 
G 
12-5 
12-7 
as Ex 
26-3 
25-1 
amine 
12-3 
14-6 
rs’ Daily Test 
19-9 27-0 
19-7 28*3 
ings— 
8-9 
15-8 
-1869-7 
20-9 
22-3 
0. 
33-7 
30-1 
17- 4 
18- 6 
24- 4 
25- 0 
36-8 
36-7 
14-7 
16-6 
28- 5 
29- 2 
Two explanatory remarks are necessary in connection 
with these statistics. Firstly, as regards the improvement 
that has taken place of late years in the purity of the 
gas of the Central Company. In the earlier years of the 
above series, the gas of this Company contained more 
sulphur than that of any of the others; and the improve¬ 
ment which has subsequently taken place is owing to the 
adoption of lime in the purifiers, instead of the oxide of 
* The doubt suggested here by the referees involves a 
monstrous inconsistency, though the phraseology employed 
is sufficiently familiar. An opinion that is “ theoretically 
correct” cannot be opposed to “practical experience” if the 
theory referred to be worth anything; but it does happen 
that “practical men” fail to comprehend, either the mean¬ 
ing of a theory or its applicability to the business they are 
concerned with.—E d. Ph. J. 
iron employed by the other Companies. The works of the 
Central Company at Bow are in a poor locality, where 
there are numerous chemical and other works, which 
produce greater nuisances than that -which arises from 
the use of lime in gasworks. But in the works of all the 
other gas companies, the use of lime as a purifier is in¬ 
admissible, owing to the nuisance which it occasions to 
the neighbourhood when taken out of the purifiers and 
exposed to the atmosphere. The works of the Imperial 
Company at Fulham are in a locality more thinly peopled 
* The title of gas engineers to have opinions on the sub¬ 
ject of gas-purification may fairly be said to rest solely on 
their technical experience in the production of gas, without 
being at all a result of their familiarity with, or even cogni¬ 
zance of the chemistry of that art, which is indeed very much 
in obscurity.—E d. Ph. J. 
