Description of the Process of Manufacturing Coal Gas, for the Lighting of Streets Houses, and Public Buildings / With Elevations, Sections, and Plans of the Most Improved Sorts of Apparatus Now Employed at the Gas Works in London and the Principal Provincial Towns of Great Britain; Accompanied With Comparative Estimates, Exhibiting the Most Economical Mode of Procuring This Species of Light

by Friedrich Christian Accum

F, F, are diagonal stays for supporting the roof of the gas holder, which has a slope of ten feet from the centre to the circumference. G, is the wooden curb at the lower margin of the machine.

This gas holder is circular. It measures forty-eight feet in diameter, and thirteen feet in height; its weight is eight tons.

The regulator adapted to this gas holder, measures three feet across its base, and its height is three feet three inches. The base of the regulating cone is four inches, and its length two feet. The machine is made of sheet iron japanned within and without.

Gas Holder with Governor or Regulating Guage at the Birmingham Gas Works.

The construction of this gas holder, as exhibited [plate V.], fig. 2, shows a perpendicular section, and fig. 3, a plan of the machine; a, a, a, a, fig. 3, are upright pillars, two of which B, B, are seen in the section, fig. 2.

In the centre of the gas holder is fixed a pipe, which allows the gas holder to slide on the central guide rod G, made fast at the bottom of the cistern, and at the top of the cross framing. C, C, are diagonal stays; D, the inlet pipe which conveys the gas into the gas holder E; the outlet pipe F, the wooden curb.

The capacity of this gas holder is 30,000 cubic feet; its regulator is precisely similar to that before described. The weight of the gas holder, exclusive of the wooden curbs at top and bottom, is between eight and nine tons.[39]

[39] The gas holder without specific gravity apparatus, at the Bristol Gas Works, is constructed on a similar principle. Its capacity is 43,000 cubic feet. Its regulator is like those already described.

The gas holder thus disencumbered of its specific gravity apparatus, requires no building to enclose it, it may be erected in the open air, for the machine cannot suffer from the rain or snow falling upon it, nor can the action of the wind render the lights unsteady.

The saving which has been effected by these improvements is very great. A gas holder without balance weight and specific gravity apparatus, with its governor, may be erected complete for action, for little more than half the cost that would be required for the erection of an apparatus of the same capacity constructed on the old plan.