Chapter VII
The burners last mentioned may be said to mark the extent of the progress that has been made, down to the present time, in the construction of apparatus for developing light from coal gas; and they remind me that I have arrived at the conclusion of my subject. From the unpretending gas-jet described by Accum—burning, with wonder-provoking steadiness and constancy, “so long as the supply of gas continued”—to the complicated apparatus of M. Clamond, is a long stretch of invention; embracing the labours of many distinct and original workers in the same field, and including numerous variations in the details of burners that have not been touched upon in the foregoing remarks. As was announced in the introduction, I have dealt in this treatise only with the more important or the more successful of the modifications that have been made from time to time in the construction of the gas-burner. In addition to the burners that have been referred to, there have been invented many others, which could not be adequately noticed without prolonging the treatise to an undue length. Some of these (the fruit of much thought and careful experiment) have obtained, in the commercial success that has attended them, no more than their merited reward; others (devoid of any real merit, and in their construction disregarding the most elementary principles of economic combustion) have been brought into somewhat extensive use by the misleading statements and false representations of their inventors, and are only tolerated through the ignorance of the public; while not a few of the latter class of burners have speedily found the oblivion which they richly deserved. Sufficient, however, has been said to show that many real improvements have been effected in the construction of gas-burners, and to prove that, with the apparatus now available, a far higher duty may be obtained from the gas consumed than was possible only a few years ago.
But although the great advance that has been made in the construction of gas-burners is undoubted, the benefits which ought to result therefrom have not been realized by the gas-consuming public; nor are they likely to be to their full extent. While the ingenious and effective inventions for utilizing the waste heat of combustion, and for lighting by incandescence, may, and doubtless will, in the course of a few years, be far more extensively adopted than at present, it is hardly to be expected that they will be generally employed. Two causes operate to preclude the latter result—namely, their first cost, and the care and attention demanded in their employment. It seems tolerably certain that for a long time yet the great bulk of coal gas, used for lighting purposes, will be consumed through the simple flat-flame burners that have done so much hitherto for the furtherance of gas lighting. Fortunately so much has been done towards the perfection of this class of burners, that, for a very slight expenditure, results may now be obtained far in advance of what could formerly be produced only by the most costly and delicate apparatus. For ordinary situations and requirements, the improved flat-flame burners produced by Bray, Brönner, and Sugg, when intelligently employed, leave scarcely anything to be desired. When intelligently employed, I repeat, and with cautious emphasis; for the best of burners will be extravagant and ineffective if employed without due regard to the conditions for which it was made. That which is most needed at the present day, and which will best ensure the continued use of coal gas for the purposes of illumination, is the more general diffusion amongst gas consumers of a knowledge of the principles of combustion, and of the simple precautions to be taken and conditions to be fulfilled in the employment of gas-burners. The apparatus that is available is both varied and effective; what is wanted is the knowledge to use it aright. By contributing to the freer dissemination of that knowledge, purveyors of gas will confer no inconsiderable benefits upon their customers, and, at the same time, will assuredly promote their own interests.
Notes
1 Flame flickers.
2 Clegg’s “Treatise on Coal Gas,” 1841, p. 21.
3 The behaviour of gas flames when exposed to the action of the wind (as exemplified in the naked lights of open markets and similar situations) affords an instructive illustration of the theory of luminous combustion. A sudden gust causes the flame to smoke, by reducing the temperature of the liberated carbon below the point at which it can combine with the oxygen of the air. A continuous wind blowing upon the flame destroys its luminosity altogether, because the heat-intensity of the flame is lowered below the temperature necessary to decompose the hydrocarbons; consequently, these latter burn without the preliminary separation of carbon, and a non-luminous flame is produced—exactly as in the Bunsen or “atmospheric” burner.
4 See Journal of Gas Lighting, Vol. XVIII., p. 88.
5 Flame flickers.
6 Do.
7 Flame flickers a great deal.
8 See Journal of Gas Lighting, Vol. XXXII., p. 423, and Vol. XXXVI., p. 376.
9 The name “slit-union,” by which Mr. Bray prefers to designate this burner, he states to be derived from the resemblance of its flame to that of the union-jet burner; while it is produced by means of a slit.
10 Although the true batswing is still in common use, I look upon the hollow-top as being its “modern representative;” seeing that, in a great many instances, it has superseded the former burner—of which, indeed, it is only an improved form.
11 Accum’s “Treatise on Gas-Lights.”
12 Clegg’s “Treatise on Coal Gas,” 1st Ed., p. 197.
13 See Journal of Gas Lighting, Vol. XXXIII., p. 162.
14 See Vol. XL., pp. 786, 950; and Vol. XLII, p. 836.
15 In justice to Mr. Clark it should be mentioned that, since the above appeared in the Journal of Gas Lighting, the attention of the writer has been called to the fact (which had been overlooked by him) that Clark’s patent was taken out some months before that of either Grimston or Thorp.
16 See Chap. II., p. 21.