In order to arrive at a full and accurate knowledge of the many advantages attending the application of carburetted hydrogen or coal gas, as a substitute for candles or lamps, it may be necessary, especially for the information of those readers who have never personally witnessed this mode of illumination, to take a brief preliminary view of some of the leading objects of public and private utility, to which this mode of procuring and distributing light may be applied, and of the extent to which it is entitled to national encouragement.
The chief advantages attending the use of gas, are superiority and uniformity of light, saving of labour, cleanliness, safety and cheapness.
It must be difficult for a person wholly unacquainted with this art, to imagine with what facility and neatness gas-lights are managed. The gas being collected in a reservoir, is conveyed by means of tubes, which branch out into smaller ramifications, until they terminate at the places where the lights are wanted. The extremities of the branching tubes are furnished with burners, having small apertures out of which the gas issues with a certain velocity corresponding to its degree of pressure. Near the termination of each tube, there is a stopcock, or valve, upon turning which when light is required, the gas instantly flows out in an equable stream. There is no noise at the opening of the valve, no disturbance in the transparency of the atmosphere; the gas instantly bursts on the approach of a lighted taper into a peculiarly brilliant, soft and beautiful flame; it requires no trimming or snuffing to keep the flame of an equal brightness. Like the light of the Sun itself, it only makes itself known by the benefit and pleasure it affords.
The gas flame is entirely free from smell. The gas itself has a disagreeable odour before it is burnt, and so has the vapour of wax, tallow and oil, as it comes from a candle or lamp newly blown out. This concession proves nothing against the flame of gas, which is perfectly inodorous.
The gas-light flame is perfectly steady; a benefit which persons accustomed to read or write by candle-light, are particularly capable of appreciating. With the other modes of illumination we have never the light of the same intensity for two minutes together, independent of that unpleasant dancing unsteady flame which is so harassing to the sight.
The size, form and intensity of the gas flame, are regulated by simply turning the stop-cock which admits the gas to the burner or lamp. The flame may at command be made to burn with an intensity sufficient to illuminate every corner of a room, or so low and dim, as barely to be perceived. It is unnecessary to point out how valuable lights of this description are in nurseries, stables, warehouses, and chambers of the sick. From the facility with which the gas flame can be conveyed in almost any direction, from the diversified size and shape which it can be made to assume, there is no kind of light so well adapted for ornamental illumination.
The flame of coal gas is of a pure white colour, and of a body full and compact. In large masses, it becomes of the same flickering character which is common to all flames of large dimensions, and is owing to the agitation of the surrounding heated atmosphere.
The saving of labour connected with the employment of gas-light, may seem on a small scale to be trifling; but when it is considered that in large manufactories, it is not unusual to find several persons employed for no other purpose than trimming the lamps or setting and snuffing the candles of the establishment, the advantage gained on this head by the use of a species of light which require no sort of attention whatever, cannot but appear very considerable.
The cleanliness of the gas-lights is also a consideration of no small importance, they are attended with none of that spilling of oil, and dropping of grease, which makes the employment of oil-lamps and candles so injurious in many warehouses, shops and private dwellings.
The flame of a gas-light compared in point of brilliancy to that of a candle, is as the flame of a common oil lamp, compared to the flame of a lamp of Argand. The difference between a street, on the night of a general illumination, and any other night when the street is under the dull glimmering light of the ordinary oil lamps, is scarcely more remarkable, than the difference between a street lighted by gas, and one lighted by oil. While the ordinary oil lamps may be said merely to serve the purpose of making “darkness visible,” the gas-lights really dispel the dominion of night, and diffuse a body of light so wide-spreading and intense, as almost to rival the clearest moonshine.