George Wardman

“ Twenty cents per thousand feet is too high a price to bring gas into general use for domestic purposes in a city where coal is cheap. Ten cents would be too much, and no doubt five cents per thousand would pay a profit. The fact is, the dealers in natural gas appear to be somewhat doubtful of the continuity of supply, and anxious to get back the cost of wells and pipes in one year, which, if successful, would be an enormous return on the investment. ”

“ In addition to the consumption of oxygen and production of carbonic acid by the use of common gas, the gas itself, owing to defectiveness of the burner, is projected into the air. Now, considering the deleterious nature of all illuminating gases, the reasons for perfect ventilation of rooms in which natural gas is used for heating and culinary purposes are self-evident, not alone as a protection against explosions, but for the health of the occupants of the house, remembering that a larger supply of oxygen is said to be necessary for the perfect combustion of natural than of common gas. ”

“ Petroleum and natural gas are so intimately related that one would hardly dare to say whether the gas proceeds from petroleum or the petroleum is deposited from the gas. It is, however, safe to assume that they are the products of one material, the lighter element separating from the heavier under certain degrees of temperature and pressure. Thus, petroleum may separate from the gas as asphaltum separates from petroleum. But some speculative minds consider natural gas to be a product of anthracite coal. ”

“ In an iron-mill of thirty furnaces, running eight heats each for twenty-four hours, this would make a difference in favor of the gas of, say, 8 X 30 X 25 = 6,000 pounds of iron per day. This is an important item of itself, leaving out the cost of firing with coal and hauling ashes.
For generating steam in large establishments, one man will attend a battery of twelve or twenty boilers, using gas as fuel, keep the pressure uniform, and have the fire-room clean as a parlor. For burning brick and earthenware, gas offers the double advantage of freedom from smoke and a uniform heat. ”

“ In short, the advantages of natural gas as a fuel are so obvious to those who have given it a trial, that the prediction is made that, should the supply fail, many who are now using it will never return to the consumption of crude coal in factories, but, if necessary, convert it or petroleum into gas at their own works. ”

“ Carbonic oxide, formed by the consumption of carbon, with an insufficient supply of air, is the fatal poison of the charcoal-furnace, not infrequently resorted to, in close rooms, as a means of suicide. The less sufficient the air toward perfect combustion, the smaller the quantity of carbonic acid and the greater the amount of carbonic oxide. That is to say, at the time of ignition the chief product of combustion is carbonic oxide, and, unless sufficient air be added to convert the oxide to carbonic acid, a decidedly dangerous product is given off into the room. ”

“ The barbarians, to show the power and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings with little drops of it, and, when it was almost night, stood at the farther end with torches, which being applied to the moistened places, the first taking fire, instantly, as quick as a man could think of it, it caught from one end to another in such manner that the whole street was one continued flame. ”

“ Even now coal can not compete with gas in the manufacture of window-glass, for, the gas being free from sulphur and other impurities contained in coal, produces a superior quality of glass; so that in this branch of industry the question of superiority seems already settled. ”

“ For, if the reduction in the cost of fuel should ever become an offset to the lower rate of wages in Europe, the manufacturers of Pennsylvania, who have long been the chief support of the protective policy of the country, may lose their present interest in that question, and leave the tariff to shift for itself elsewhere. ”

“ That it is not used in all the glass-houses of Pittsburg is due to the fact that its advantages were not fully known when the furnaces were fired last summer, and it costs a large sum to permit the furnaces to cool off after being heated for melting. When the fires cool down, and before they are started up again, the furnaces now using coal will doubtless all be changed so as to admit natural gas. The superiority of French over American glass is said to be due to the fact that the French use wood and the Americans coal in their furnaces, wood being free from sulphur, phosphorus, etc. ”

“ On Big Sewickley Creek, in Westmoreland County, Pa., natural gas was used for evaporating water in the manufacture of salt thirty years ago, and gas is still issuing at the same place. Natural gas has been in use in several localities in Eastern Ohio for twenty-five years, and the wells are flowing as vigorously as when first known. It has also been in use in West Virginia for a quarter of a century, as well as in the petroleum region of Western Pennsylvania, where it has long been utilized in generating steam for drilling oil-wells. ”

“ THE practical application of natural gas, as an article of fuel, to the purpose of manufacturing glass, iron, and steel, promises to work a revolution in the industrial interests of America—promises to work a revolution; for, notwithstanding the fact that, in many of the largest iron, steel, and glass factories in Pittsburg and its vicinity, natural gas has already been substituted for coal, the managers of some such works are shy of the new fuel, mainly for two reasons: 1. ”

“ Without oxygen human life, as well as light, would become extinct. It is asserted that one common gas-jet consumes as much oxygen as five persons.
Carbonic-acid gas is the element which, in deep mines and vaults, causes almost instant insensibility and suffocation to persons subjected to its influences, and instantly extinguishes the flame of any light lowered into it. The normal quantity of this gas contained in the air we breathe is ·04; one per cent of it causes distress in breathing; two per cent is dangerous ”

“ As the wells are on one side eighteen and on the other about twenty-five miles distant, and as the consumption is variable, the pressure at the city can not be given. Greater pressure might be obtained at the wells, but this would increase the liability to leakage and bursting of pipes. For the prevention of such casualties safety-valves are provided at the wells, permitting the escape of all superfluous gas. The enormous force of this gas may be appreciated from a comparison of, say, 200 pounds pressure at the wells with a two-ounce pressure of common gas for ordinary lighting. ”

“ They do not deem the difference between the price of natural gas and coal sufficient, as yet, to justify the expenditure involved in the furnace changes necessary to the substitution of the one for the other. ”

“ Tidy's table, each ordinary jet of common gas contributes to the air of a room sixteen by ten feet on the sides and nine feet high, containing 1,440 cubic feet of air, twenty-two per cent of carbonic-acid gas, which, continued for twenty hours without ventilation, would reach the fatal four per cent. ”

“ They believed in two great powers—the Spirit of Light, or Good, and the Spirit of Darkness, or Evil. Subsequent to Zoroaster, when the Persian Empire rose to its greatest power and importance, overspreading the west to the shores of the Caspian and beyond, the tribes of the Caucasus suffered political subjugation ”