A NEW GAS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2564, 26 March 1877, Page 3

A NEW GAS.

" There is in operation in Jersey City a new system of gas lighting, abolishing gasworks, and.-uiiichines which produce gas by the passages of air through, or mingling air with hydfj-earbou vapour. By this system no ■gas-pipes are required ; the gas generator is situated in the burner, and the invention reduces itself simply to the means of sending the requisite gasproducing material to that point in each/ post of fixture. The entire apparatus consists of an air compressor at some central locality, several small tanks (one to each post) laidnnd«r theside-wnlks.a small air tube from the reservoh', filled by the compressoi", to each tank, and the pipe from the tank to convey a petroleum product to the burner. This simple plant is to be substituted for the elaborate manufactories, gas-houses, miles of piping, and innumerable metres, required under the existing system. The tank? are of palvanised iron, with copper top nnd bottom, and each holds 48 gallons, that quantity of oil being rather more than a six months' supply for a single burner. The hydrocarbon used at Jersey City is a benzine of low value, and for which there is -\but little or no industrial employment. % is fed into the tank through a hole inS the top, which is accessible from the sidewalk by a scuttle with an iron cover. The cost of the system lihs been ascertained by the actual working of eight street lamps, each using a sixfoot burner. The experiment had extended over 35 days, of 10 hours each, and the consumption of benzine was found to be tight gallons for each lamp. The present price of oil in America is ten cents per gallon, which would give a total for the eight lamps of six dollars and four cents. '! he aggregate numbers of hours is 2800. so that with the .burners used, 16.800 feet of gas were consumed, giving the cost of the gas used about 38 cents per thousand feet, a mere fraction of the average cost of coal gas. Whether it would be desirable or profitable to introduce this system into places already well provided with works for the production and distribution of gas on the old system may be doubtful—though the saving of cost even in such cases seems great enough to warrant it—but of its fitness for small towns/where no gas-works exist, there can be littledoub^as it renders^ the lighting of the streets and build« |; ings easy at small expense. T^ot only this system seems to recommend itself on the score of small expense of woi'king, but also because it would require much less cutting up of streets to lay pipes, and the danger to health, as well as the risk of fire from escape of gas, is almost done away with, from the fact that the gas is generated almost at the spot where it is consumed.—Scientific American.