Untitled

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 515, 4 May 1880, Page 3

GAS CHEAPE R THAN WATER. A new Edison has arisen in Victoria. A discovery has been made—not only made, but practically tested—which is likely to revolutionise our system of street illumination—to produce gas at a price which will make it absolutely cheaper than water, with a lighting power which more than quadruples the present standard. The new gas, which affords .a brilliant, smokeless, white light, burns with a steady flame, and is far superior in appearance to the yellow and flickering article night-workers now suffer by, and has the further advantage of requiring but little labor in the manufacture, arid no coal. :A gentleman resident in Ballarat narrowly escaped the opportunity of becoming a millionaire, by sharing in the undertaking, but since then a company has been formed, with a large capital, to purchase the inventor’s rights throughout the world. The calculations made indicate that the profits of the new venture are likely to prove something stupendous, while the practical and scientific teats to which the invention has been exposed seems to indicate that the hopes of the shareholders have justification. The process of manufacture is both simple and cheap, and although in England and America the cost of production will be less than in the colonies,, there is little doubt but that we are on the eve of a domestic revolution, which will render the electric light a superfluity.