WATER-GAS AT LAST

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 76, 15 March 1879, Page 3

WATER-GAS AT LAST

If certain very circumstantial statements may be relied upon, the old problem of obtaining illuminating gas from -water has at length been solved in a vory ■satisfactory manner.' There have been many attempts to achieve this, and several of them have proved.thoroughly successful, wo believe, in every respeot but one. That, unfortunately, was the allirajfVtht ono of cost. It has been deniOM rated that to obtain a good illiiminatiiL' gas from water is an easy matter, but to make it cheaply has hitherto, we understand, batlled tho most ingenious of inventors. It is said, however, that a system has been in operation for a year past iu New York by which not only an exceptionally pure gas is obtained, but ■ obtianed at such a price as renders it a formidable rival to coal gas. Many large .establishments, and several streets in New York, have for some time past beer, supplied -v..L this novel light, ami it is said that t'no demand for it is in excess of existing facilities for supplying it The New York Sun gives, apparently minute and complete details of the pro<ees, though, it is to be presumed, they are hot quite so complete oa they look, since the company professes to keep tho modus operandi a profound secret. According to the account given, it appears that the water from which the gas is to be produced is first, hoatod to lOOdog. Fahrenheit, and then passed into generators tilled with anthracite coal, whon tho oxygen unites with tho carbon of tho coal, and forms carbonic aside. This car hemic oxide, mixed with. Uui liberated hydrogen constitutes the crude g*s, which Los now to undergo various processes of

purification, until in its ultimato form it is found to be a clear, white-burning gas, without odour, and far more brilliant than ordinary coal-gas. Its illuminating power is represented to be 30 per cent, greater than that of carburetted hydrogen, and it could be sold, if the manufacturers were so disposed, at a much lower rate than this latter gas At,present, however, they atfinn that they have two thousand applicants on their books waiting to bo served and they see no particular reason for exceptional generosity. It costs them, it is said, 50 cents per thousand cubic feet, and they sell it at 2 dollars ; and while the price of coal-gas keeps up to that mark and they are overwhelmed with orders, they see no great inducement to make any alteration. When the electric light has been a little further elaborated, possibly it will enable both ol i and new companies to see the matter from another aspect.