GAS FOR THE MILLION.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 92, 5 June 1877, Page 3

GAS FOR THE MILLION.

An Otago exchange writes as follows : —"The drapery warehouse of Mr. Alexander Inglis, at the corner of High and Princes street, was lighted up last evening in a manner that should be a caution to gas companies generally.. With seven patent burners they produced a light through their extensive establishment immeasurably superior to anything that they ever succeeded in accomplishing with 24 Corporation jets. But the secret of their success was not so much in the burners—which in themselves are startling patterns of the ingenuity of the race " that licks creation"—as in the material from which the gas is prepared. Instead of depending on the ordinary Corporation will-o'-the-wisp the gas ie actually made do the premises. In the cellar immetnately beneath the shop we were shown she whole apparatus. It consisted cimply of a brightly polished copper iylinder four feet in length by three feet in diameter, a piece of steel cable, and a big concrete cheese weighing 3701b. The wire was attached to the concrete weight and wound round a screw at the end of the cylinder, so as to subject the air inside to a regular pressure. The way in which the gas is produced appears to be as remarkable for its simplicity as it is singularly safe and cleanly. All the ingredients required are air, water, and a small supply of gasoline occupies a small chamber at one end of the cylinder. As the gas is consumed the air is forced through the gasoline, and thus, converted into an inflammable and very superior gas, with an illuminating power equal to 30 candles, it ascends through the pipes to supply the warehouse above with bottled daylight. A more cleanly, ingenious, or useful apparatus we have never witnessed. The patent for the Colonies has been secured by Mr. Hepburn, of the well-known firm of M'Laundress, Hepburn, and Co. Thejnvention hails from America, where the new gas lias come into extensive use, and is reckoned so safe that its manufacture involves no alteration in the rate of insurance premiums. An inspection of Mr. Inglis' warehouse when lighted up is all that is needed to convince anyone of its value. The apparatus is fitted up'by' Messrs. A. and T. Burt in a way so satisfactory that the gas was in full swing all over the premises a few minutes after the operations were completed. One of its smallest recommendations is that instead of 10s per 1000 feet, the price of Corporation twilight, the enterprising drapers will be able to display their goods by a dazzling light which is estimated to cost exactly 63 per 1000 feet. This new gas machine is, we believe, the first that has been imported to the Southern Hemisphere. Its value to up-country townships, dependent for their nocturnal enlightening on candles and kerosene, should be something immense, and as a means of keeping greedy coal-gas Corporations in thorough subjection, every student of domestic economy, from the vendor of coloured baloons to the garrulous housewife who is everlastingly fretting away the last remnants of a transitory smile over her monthly increasing gas bill, the innovation of this Yankee notion will doubtless be hailed with unequivocal delight.