A Practical Treatise on Gas-light / Exhibiting a Summary Description of the Apparatus and Machinery Best Calculated for Illuminating Streets, Houses, and Manufactories, with Carburetted Hydrogen, or Coal-Gas, with Remarks on the Utility, Safety, and General Nature of this new Branch of Civil Economy.

by Friedrich Christian Accum

The uses of the gas-lights already enumerated must of themselves, justify us in attaching great importance to the discovery, and if reduced to practice all over the kingdom, would employ a large capital in a way the most advantageous and productive. But the utility of this light will be almost indefinitely increased to the use of private families. That such an application is practicable, in all towns of Great Britain, is obvious, from what has been done already, and that it would be highly economical and ornamental, there can be little doubt.

By means of gas we may have a pure and agreeable light at command in every room of our house, just as we have the command of water, with this singular advantage, that these lights may burn for hours within an inch of the most combustible substance without danger, because they neither can burn down like a candle nor emit sparks. These properties make the gas-lights a most desirable light on board our ships of war, where severe regulations are necessary to prevent danger from fire, which after all are frequently evaded. The gas-light might be used in the store-rooms, and even in the powder magazine, and the captain would completely command the supply of light by the possession of the key which opens and shuts the stop-cock. A small apparatus which may be erected at a trifling expence would be sufficient for that purpose.

In shops, counting-houses, and public offices, the advantages are a white light, nearly equal to day-light, a warmth which almost supersedes the use of fires, a total absence of smoke, smell, and vapour, and great economy of labour.

The heat produced by gas-lights must be observed by every one who has had an opportunity of attending to it in the most superficial manner, and the reason why gas-lights produce more heat than oil or candle-light will not appear strange to our chemical readers (and who is there now that does not know something of chemistry?) when it is considered that the gas-light flame condenses more air than the flame of oil and tallow, and consequently must produce more heat.

The flame of gas may be produced in so large a surface, as to be applied to heat the most spacious apartments as well as to light them.

If the gas is made to issue by a circular rim of about twelve inches diameter; it forms a sort of an Argand lamp on a great scale, and it is manifest that a circumference of three feet of flame will heat the air very rapidly, and with such uniformity that we need no longer be exposed to the partial heating occasioned by the strong draft of a large fire. A lamp of this description in the centre of a large room, with a very small fire to secure a gradual renewal of the air would enable us to enjoy the most healthful and agreeable temperature.

From trials made on this subject, I am enabled to state, that three Argand’s lamps, consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour, are sufficient to keep a room 10 feet square at a temperature of 55° Fahr. when the air without doors has a temperature of freezing.[25]

[25] Mr. Dalton’s method of ascertaining the comparative quantity or effects of heat evolved during the combustion of different inflammable gases, and other substances capable of burning with flame, as stated in his System of Chemistry, vol. I. p. 76, deserves to be recommended to those who are more immediately interested in this subject. The process, which is simple, easy, and accurate, is as follows:

Take a bladder of any size, (let us suppose for the sake of illustration, the bladder to hold or to be equal in capacity to 30,000 grains of water,) and having furnished it with a stop-cock and a small jet pipe, fill it with the combustible gas the heating power of which is to be tried. Take also a tinned iron vessel with a concave bottom of the same capacity, pour into it as much water as will make the vessel and water together equal to the above stated bulk of water in the bladder, viz. 30,000 grains. This being done, set fire to the gas at the orifice of the pipe, and bring the point of the flame under the bottom of the tinned vessel, and suffer it to burn there, by squeezing the bladder till the whole of the gas is consumed. The increase of temperature of the water in the tinned vessel being carefully noticed before and after the experiment, gives very accurately the heating power of the given bulk of the inflammable gas.