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

Directions to Workmen for fixing the Governor and Gas Metre.[49]

[49] Copied from Messrs. Clegg’s and Crossley’s printed directions to workmen, for fixing governors and gas metres.

The governor must be fixed perpendicularly, so as to admit its floating vessel u, x, y, z. Fig. 4, [plate III.], or fig. 9, [plate III.], to be taken out of the outer case of the machine if occasion should require it.

The gas enters into the machine from the street mains at the lowest branch a, and passes out of the machine by its highest branch b.

In connecting the pipes of supply, particular care must be taken that the work is not bound, or the governor by any means rendered leaky. It must be filled with water to the top of the central tube.

Examine the workmanship of the machine to see that it is perfect, and that the regulating cone P, is firmly secured to the top of the floating vessel and well centered. The floating vessels u, x, y, z, should clear the sides of the outer case of the apparatus by a quarter of an inch; and when sunk down, it should rest even upon the top of the central pipe, which conducts the gas into, and out of, the machine. The aperture in which the cone moves will then be at its widest opening, and when the floating vessel u, x, y, z, has risen to its highest elevation, the regulating aperture x, T, will be closed.

In this situation particular attention must be paid, that the regulating cone does not stick or rub in any part, but that it descends freely.

To the lower extremity of the floating vessel u, x, y, z, may be adapted an air vessel for the purpose of reducing the pressure of the gas.

The governor must be so fixed, that the water which may condense in the pipes leading to the burners shall drain back to the street mains, in order that it may not accumulate in the machine so as to impede its operations; for this purpose the gas pipes should have a fall of half an inch in three or four feet.

When the locality of situation will not admit of the water that may accumulate in the pipes falling back to the mains, its accumulation within the governor above the proper level of the water is prevented by an inverted siphon affixed to the machine, which allows the water to drain off without any escape of the gas.