The gas question : economic and sanitary / by James Adams, M.D.
- James Maxwell Adams
- Date:
- 1882
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The gas question : economic and sanitary / by James Adams, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![comparatively high illuminating power is a most desirable thimr, independent altogether of the consideration of cost. Cannel gas gives very little more carbonic acid and other products of combustion tlian common gas, while it yields in ordinary practice twice as much light. In other words, if we wish in an apartment a certain amount of light, we must vitiate tlie air to nearly doulde tlie extent if we employ common giis, such jis that used in Birmingham and London [Manchester and Liverpool], that we require to do with Glasgow or other gas, with a corresponding increase of temperature. As regards sulphur, it is even worse; for in common gas the average is about 30 grains per 100 cubic feet, while with our gas it certainly does not exceed 15 grains; so that for equal quantities of light about four times as much sulphurous acid is produced in burning com- mon gas as compared with cannel gas. This is a very serious evil, and accounts to a large extent for the comparatively limited use of gas in the better class of houses in London and other English towns. Then again, all our gas fittings are adapted for cannel gas, and are often deficient even for it. and a change to gas made from common coal would necessitate a complete revolu- tion in gas-fitting arrangements. 1 think you will agiee with me, therefore, that we should retain our cannel gas as long ixs we can ; and my own impression is, that by a judicious use of a mixture of splint or caking coal with oil shales, together with a limited use of cannel coal, a supply of 25 to 28 candles may be kept up for very many years.” I agree in totalibus with these thoroughly accurate and usefully suggestive observations. The ca.se 1 am presenting could not be better argued, and I commend the moral to the thoughtful con sideration of our citizens. I go further, and urge that instead of lowering the quality of Glasgow gas it should be raised—raised to the 28 candle gas that was supplied in Glasgow before the Town Council obtained the control—raised to the level of the other chief towns of Scotland, instead of being almost exceptionally the lowest—raised to the level of 28 candles, as supplied in Edinburgh, or to 30 candles, as in Aberdeen. And it may even be in this time of progress that, when the consumer who thinks with me has obtained his desire, he might still crave more light, even the electric light. Indeed, it has just occurred to me that if .some great s[)eculative project was hatching for the iiitroduc-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24919792_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
