The literature of an ancient nation is often referred to as revealing the civilization of the period. Surely the scientific literature which deals with concrete facts is an exact indicator of the technical knowledge of a period! That little was known of natural gas and doubtless of artificial gas in the seventeenth century is shown by a brief report entitled "A Well and Earth in Lancashire taking Fire at a Candle," by Tho. Shirley in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1667. Much of the quaint charm of the original is lost by inability to present the text in its original form, but it is reproduced as closely as practicable. The report was as follows:
About the latter End of Feb. 1659, returning from a Journey to my House in Wigan, I was entertained with the Relation of an odd Spring situated in one Mr. Hawkley's Ground (if I mistake not) about a Mile from the Town, in that Road which leads to Warrington and Chester: The People of this Town did confidently affirm, That the Water of this Spring did burn like Oil.
When we came to the said Spring (being 5 or 6 in Company together) and applied a lighted Candle to the Surface of the Water; there was 'tis true, a large Flame suddenly produced, which burnt the Foot of a Tree, growing on the Top of a neighbouring Bank, the Water of which Spring filled a Ditch that was there, and covered the Burning-place; I applied the lighted Candle to divers Parts of the Water contained in the said Ditch, and found, as I expected, that upon the Touch of the Candle and the Water the Flame was extinct.
Again, having taken up a Dish full of water at the flaming Place, and held the lighted Candle to it, it went out. Yet I observed that the Water, at the Burning-place, did boil, and heave, like Water in a Pot upon the Fire, tho' by putting my Hand into it, I could not perceive it so much as warm.
This Boiling I conceived to proceed from the Eruption of some bituminous or sulphureous Fumes; considering this Place was not above 30 or 40 Yards distant from the Mouth of a Coal-Pit there: And indeed Wigan, Ashton, and the whole Country, for many Miles compass, is underlaid with Coal. Then, applying my Hand to the Surface of the Burning-place of the Water, I found a strong Breath, as it were a Wind, to bear against my Hand.
When the Water was drained away, I applied the Candle to the Surface of the dry Earth, at the same Point where the Water burned before; the Fumes took fire, and burned very bright and vigorous. The Cone of the Flame ascended a Foot and a half from the Superficies of the Earth; and the Basis of it was of the Compass of a Man's Hat about the Brims. I then caused a Bucket full of Water to be pour'd on the Fire, by which it was presently quenched. I did not perceive the Flame to be discoloured like that of sulphurous Bodies, nor to have any manifest Scent with it. The Fumes, when they broke out of the Earth, and press'd against my Hand, were not, to my best Remembrance, at all hot.
Turning again to Dr. Clayton's experiments, we see that he pointed out striking and valuable properties of coal-gas but apparently gave no attention to its useful purposes. Furthermore, his account appears to have attracted no particular notice at the time of its publication in 1739. Dr. Richard Watson in 1767 described the results of experiments which he had been making with the products arising from the distillation of coal. In his process he permitted the gas to ascend through curved tubes, and he particularly noted "its great inflammability as well as elasticity." He also observed that "it retained the former property after it had passed through a great quantity of water." His published account dealt with a variety of facts and computations pertaining to the quantities of coke, tar, etc., produced from different kinds of coal and was a scientific work of value, but apparently the usefulness of the property of inflammability of coal-gas did not occur to him.
It is usually the habit of the scientific explorer of nature to return from excursions into her unfrequented recesses with new knowledge, to place it upon exhibition, and to return for more. The inventor passes by and sees applications for some of these scientific trophies which are productive of momentous consequences to mankind. Sir Humphrey Davy described his primitive arc-lamp three quarters of a century before Brush developed an arc-lamp for practical purposes. Maxwell and Hertz respectively predicted and produced electromagnetic waves long before Marconi applied this knowledge and developed "wireless" telegraphy. In a similar manner scientific accounts of the production and properties of coal-gas antedated by many years the initial applications made by Murdock to illuminating purposes.
Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century the civilized world had only a faint glimpse of the illuminating property of gas, but practicable gas-lighting was destined soon to be an epochal event in the progress of lighting. The dawn of modern science was coincident with the dawn of a luminous era.
At Soho foundry in 1798 Murdock constructed an apparatus which enabled him to exhibit his lighting-plan on a larger scale and to experiment on purifying and burning the gas so as to eliminate odor and smoke. Soho was an unique institution described as a place
to which men of genius were invited and resorted from every civilized country, to exercise and to display their talents. The perfection of the manufacturing arts was the great and constant aim of its liberal and enlightened proprietors, Messrs. Boulton and Watt; and whoever resided there was surrounded by a circle of scientific, ingenious, and skilful men, at all times ready to carry into effect the inventions of each other.
The Treaty of Amiens, which gave to England the peace she was sorely in need of, afforded Murdock an opportunity in 1802 favorable for making a public display of gas-lighting. The illumination of the Soho works on this occasion is described as "one of extraordinary splendour." The fronts of the extensive range of buildings were ornamented with a large number of devices which displayed the variety of forms of gas-lights. At that time this was a luminous spectacle of great novelty and the populace came from far and wide "to gaze at, and to admire, this wonderful display of the combined effects of science and art."
Naturally, Murdock had many difficulties to overcome in these early days, but he possessed skill and perseverance. His first retorts for distilling coal were similar to the common glass retort of the chemist. Next he tried cast-iron cylinders placed perpendicularly in a common furnace, and in each were put about fifteen pounds of coal. In 1804 he constructed them with doors at each end, for feeding coal and extracting coke respectively, but these were found inconvenient. In his first lighting installation in the factory of Phillips and Lee in 1805 he used a large retort of the form of a bucket with a cover on it. Inside he installed a loose cage of grating to hold the coal. When carbonization was complete the coke could be removed as a whole by extracting this cage. This retort had a capacity of fifteen hundred pounds of coal. He labored with mechanical details, varied the size and shape of the retorts, and experimented with different temperatures, with the result that he laid a solid foundation for coal-gas lighting. For his achievements he is entitled to an honorable place among the torch-bearers of civilization.
The epochal feature of the development of gas-lighting is that here was a possibility for the first time of providing lighting as a public utility. In the early years of the nineteenth century the foundation was laid for the great public-utility organizations of the present time. Furthermore, gas-lighting was an improvement over candles and oil-lamps from the standpoints of convenience, safety, and cost. The latter points are emphasized by Murdock in his paper presented before the Royal Society in 1808, in which he describes the first industrial installation of gas-lighting. He used two types of burners, the Argand and the cockspur. The former resembled the Argand lamp in some respects and the latter was a three-flame burner suggesting a fleur-de-lis. In this installation there were 271 Argand burners and 636 cockspurs. Each of the former "gave a light equal to that of four candles; and each of the latter, a light equal to two and a quarter of the same candles; making therefore the total of the gas light a little more than 2500 candles." The candle to which he refers was a mold candle "of six in the pound" and its light was considered a standard of luminous intensity when it was consuming tallow at the rate of 0.4 oz. (175 grains) per hour. Thus the candle became very early a standard light-source and has persisted as such (with certain variations in the specifications) until the present time. However, during recent years other standard light-sources have been devised.