THE GAS GLOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 103, 22 July 1927, Page 11 (Supplement)

THE GAS GLOW

STRIKING EXHIBIT “THE SPIRIT OF COAL” CHALLENGE AT THE SHOW THROUGH most of the spacious sheds occupied by the Winter Exhibition, electric lights glare from the rafters, and the white light searches every corner. But there is one part of the buildings where the softer light of gas lamps is shed. There is no incongruous juxtaposition of gas cookers, with electric light globes, in the Auckland Gas Company’s section at the exhibition. Here a large part of the shed has peen fitted with gas mains, from floor to ceiling, and while gas cookers and other appliances are demonstrating their efficiency, gas lights glow overhead, and the electric bulbs ham;, superfluous, from the roof. CHALLENGE OF GAS Displays more thoroughly staged are rare. Clearly the Gas Company concedes no other lighting or heating agent’s superiority over the commodity it markets. No sense of misplaced modesty is evident in its- brave show, occupying all one end of a huge shed, including a central demonstration space and 10 bays round the walls. The display is interesting for many reasons. » Examining it. the observer loses any preconceived, notion that * was inclined to be a thing of the past. The idea that gas appliances are obsolete takes wings. There is a striking figure, flaming scarlet, entitled “The Spirit of Coal,” and its uggressive challenge almost seems to proclaim what coal has done for the world, and what gas, following it, is still doing. Before the days of the incandescent mantle, gas was emitted from the jet in a flat and flickering flame. Tlkis it burned, away back in the early stages of last century, when astonished Londoners beheld London Bridge lighted by the new luminant. TiT« n it was a lighting agency only; now? it cooks, boils water, heats rooms, ajwl performs numberless services. On display in one of the Gas Company’s booths is a Bonecourt steam boiler, automatically controlled, imported for W. R. Cooke and Sons, of Auckland' In an adjacent stall a shimmering heat is radiated from small a soldering iron furnace, and a small muffle furnace, with a violently Bot interior, lit by a malevolent glow*. In the composition of these indQstrial appliances, specially baked firebrick is important, and the commodity, with others of similar character, is | manufactured by the Gas Company, which controls several associated interests. Besides purveying gas, it distributes cookers, califonts, and heaters, and arranges to demonstrate their vi, tues. At the exhibition are laboursaving wash-boilers, a marvellous automatic califonts, and elaborate demonstration stalls, where capable cooks show easy familiarity with gas ranges, and produce wholesome and palat.Lbh results.