DIXON'S GAS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1106, 17 May 1883, Page 3

DIXON'S GAS.

John Dixon, erstwhile of Invercargill, and whose patent gas was laughed to scorn by the Royal Society of Victoria, has turned up in Liverpool, and seems to have got some capitalists and others to believe that there is after all something in his discovery. Here is an extract from a report submitted to the 'Dixon Patent Gas Company' at the end of last year : " The apparatus is somewhat similar to that used iu coal gasmaking, but an important feature is that the number of stokers required by" the two systems of coal gas and Hie patent metallic gas is that one man with the later is capable of doing the work of five men with the former, owiDg to there being no drawing and charging of retorts, except at long intervals. During the twenty-four hours working there was no obstruction in the retorts from the deposit of carbon. The light as observed in burning through an ordinary No. 2 Bray's burner, is of a most agreeable character, mellow, and does not affect the eye after looking at it for some time, as is the case in looking at the electric light. We submitted the gas to a severe test of a sudden reduction of temperature from about 25deg to Bdeg Fahrenheit, and did not find, on observing the flame at the exit of the freezing apparatus, that the illuminating power was affected, or that any condensation had taken place during the twenty-four hours the gas bad been in the refrigerator. Taking the cost of the material, the high illuminating power, the value of the residuum, together with tiie great saving of labor in this system as compared with ordinary coal gas, we consider that it much to a great extent supersede all other methods of lighting, 1 ' The illuminating power of the rhetalic gas is said to be 43 92 standard candles, each burner consuming 120 grains per hour, equal to 59.5 candles per five cubic feet of gasper hour, and the cost abont 2s 4£d per 1,000 cubic feet. The report has appended to it the signatures of Mr H. Hill, C.E., manager for twenty-five years of the Huyton and Roby Gas Company, and Mr H. Aaiiton Hill, C.E, engineer to the Wallasey gas works.