Читать книгу Description of the Process of Manufacturing Coal Gas. For the Lighting of Streets Houses, and Public Buildings онлайн

15 страница из 52

The chief advantages attending the use of gas, are superiority and uniformity of light, saving of labour, cleanliness, safety and cheapness.

It must be difficult for a person wholly unacquainted with this art, to imagine with what facility and neatness gas-lights are managed. The gas being collected in a reservoir, is conveyed by means of tubes, which branch out into smaller ramifications, until they terminate at the places where the lights are wanted. The extremities of the branching tubes are furnished with burners, having small apertures out of which the gas issues with a certain velocity corresponding to its degree of pressure. Near the termination of each tube, there is a stopcock, or valve, upon turning which when light is required, the gas instantly flows out in an equable stream. There is no noise at the opening of the valve, no disturbance in the transparency of the atmosphere; the gas instantly bursts on the approach of a lighted taper into a peculiarly brilliant, soft and beautiful flame; it requires no trimming or snuffing to keep the flame of an equal brightness. Like the light of the Sun itself, it only makes itself known by the benefit and pleasure it affords.