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Originally posted by Monty
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Guys,
At work right now however heres just a snippet of my research.
"As the intense light obtained from the heating of a pellicle of small particles of non-combustible matter is destined to act an important part in the future of economic and brilliant gas lighting, some particulars of the phenomenon may call for notice.
It may oftentimes have been observed that in the dull embers of burning charcoal from logs of oak or ash some stationary sparks appear at times, giving out an intense white light, which illuminates all surrounding objects, and lasts for several seconds, much resembling in colour and brilliance the light of the electric glow lamp.
It is a property of very small particles to attract invisible heat and disperse it in the form of light. The effect depends principally on the minute size of the radiating atoms, their non-conduction for heat, and its consequent retention, and also their absolute infusibility. A very fine platinum wire held in the out-flame of a candle gives an intense light, and has a collective power for heat by which such a high temperature is induced, that the cobweb wire becomes actually fused.
In the year 1852 some tufts of confervae, or common ‘hair weed’ were sent to me for examination. These were taken from some rock pools called ‘Hell’s Kettles’ in consequence of continuous bubbles of carbonic-acid gas [carbon dioxide] rising to the surface of the water. The filaments of the weed were coated with a white deposit in which diatoms were expected to be seen under the microscope. I found that the coating was amorphous, being nothing else but a very fine deposit of carbonate of lime without struc*ture. I held a few of the filaments in a gas-flame and was struck by the intense light given out. The vegetable substance of the filament was of course consumed but the lime coating, being infusible, retained its form. I then attached a fringe of these filaments from a ring of wire, and suspended it so as to encircle a small solid or Bunsen gas-flame, and got a fine white light arising entirely from incandescence of the lime. I took no further hint of this at the time as the least puff of air was sufficient to break up the fabric.
In the year 1880, having then in view improvements for increasing the intensity of ordinary gas light, I called to mind the foregoing experiment and reproduced it in a more substantial and stable form. I first constructed a cage of very fine platinum wire to inclose a Bunsen gas-flame; knowing that thin platinum in time became disintegrated and wasted by the continued action of gas-flame, I brushed on a protective coat consisting of a paste of very fine fluor-spar. The heat from the flame acted upon both the inner and outer surfaces of the cage. By this means I got a brilliant light from an otherwise invisible flame. The chief objection to this light was that it had a somewhat greenish tinge.
The fluor-spar is quite infusible and is decomposed into its elements by continued heating. The light, though very economical in gas consumption is far surpassed in this respect by the now well-known regenerative lamp, a form which I soon afterwards introduced into the market, but the ‘incandes*cent’ gas-light has the merit of great simplicity, and can be understood and managed by anyone, and consequently has recently been very popular, and improvements will probably be forthcoming that will greatly enhance its use and efficiency.
F.H.Wenham, The English Mechanic, 1894"
and
G[I]as.—The names of the London Gas Companies, with the addresses of their chief offices, are as follows:
The Gas Light and Coke Company, Horseferry-road, S.W.
The London, 26, Southampton-street, Strand.
The South Metropolitan, 589, Old Kent-road.
The Phoenix, 70, Bankside.
The Commercial, Harford-st, Stepney.
The gas delivered by the various companies is of such an illuminating power, that when consumed at the ordinary pressure, at the rate of 5 cubic feet per hour in a No.1 Sugg’s Standard Argand burner, it gives a light equal to 15 sperm candles. The definition of a “candle” is the light given by a pure sperm candle, consuming 120 grains of sperm per hour. The price charged for gas varies from 3s. to 3s. 6d. per 1,000 cubic feet.
THE SERVICE PIPE is the pipe which conducts gas from the company’s main in the street to the consumer’s meter. It is generally laid to just within the precincts of the consumer’s premises, and maintained at the Company’s expense When a new service pipe, or an alteration in the size of an existing one is required, notice must be sent to the gas company’s office, stating the number of gas burners for lighting, gas stoves for cooking, and gas fires for heating it is proposed to use. On taking possession of a house the service pipe is generally found disconnected and capped off in the area. Before making use of it notice must be sent to the gas company, who then send their inspector with a printed form of contract for signature; and this contract is to the effect that the consumer will hold himself responsible for all gas consumed on the premises, and will permit access to the meter by any one of their authorised servants at all reasonable hours.
When an outgoing tenant quits a house leaving a quarter’s gas unpaid, the company cannot make the incoming tenant responsible for such default, or refuse on this account to supply him with gas.
When a stoppage occurs in the service-pipe from the deposit of napthalin, by writing to the gas company’s office men are sent to remove it without any charge being made to the consumer.
THE GAS METER.—In all dwelling houses it is better to employ a “dry” than a “wet’ meter, and better to rent it from the gas company, who will be responsible for its proper working and maintenance, than to buy one. When a 5-light meter is spoken of, it means a meter of sufficient capacity to supply gas for 5 argand burners, each consuming, say from 6 to 8 cubic feet per hour, so that a 5-light meter will be quite sufficient for 8 or 9 ordinary fish-tail burners. The idea that the gas company can force the meter round, or in any way influence its registration in an improper way, is absurd.
Under the “Sale of Gas Acts,” gas consumers have the privilege of having their meters tested should their correctness be doubted at the offices of the Metropolitan Board of Works. These offices are for the northern and eastern divisions at White Lion-street, Shoreditch; for south eastern division at Castle-street, Southwark; and for western division, St. Ann-street, Westminster.
The charge for testing meters is as follows: 1 to 5 light meter inclusive, 6d. each; 10 to 40 light meter inclusive, 1s. each; 50 to 60 light meter inclusive, 2s. each; 80 to 100 light meter inclusive, 3s. each, and so on. Should the Gas Company be proved to be in the wrong they have to pay the expense of testing, which otherwise falls on the consumer.
Gas pipes laid throughout a building should in all cases be of wrought iron and painted with two coats of oil paint. No pipe less than ½ inch internal bore should be permitted. To burn gas as supplied in London economically, the rule is large pipes and low pressure.
The pressure of gas to a house is best regulated by a wet governor —it is an exceedingly simple, durable, and efficient instrument. The mercurial governor is objectionable owing to the contracted gas ways, and the liability of the mercury to get into and destroy the meter. There are innumerable patent regulators, but none work better than the wet governor.
GAS BURNERS.—The argand and fishtail burners, made by Sugg, of Westminster, and supplied by all respectable gasfitters, are on questionably the best. It is often supposed that if a good fishtail or flat flame burner is employed, it burns equally well whatever shape of globe be used; this is not the case, the best form of globe is spherical, with a large opening, say 3 ¼ in. at the bottom, and 3 ½ in. at thc top. Melon or pine shaped globes are bad, saucer shaped are still worse. For reception and bedrooms the opal Christiania shade or globe, with a No: 4 or 5 flat flame stentite burner, gives the best and most agreeable result with the least consumption of gas. The Bronner burner is economical, but must not he used in places exposed to much draught. For basement offices the No. 4 flat flame burner will answer every purpose. The constant complaint of consumers about the “bad gas” either means that the supply of gas is deficient or that it is improperly consumed: with deficient supply it must rest either with the gas company, whose service pipe may be stopped, or with the consumer, whose fittings may be choked up or too small: in the case of bad burners the remedy is an easy one. The comparison on the same chandelier of a No. 5 flat flame burner with 7 ½ .in. Christiania shade, will at once show whether the old burners and globes are or are not of the right kind. And when a good, burner and globe are obtained it is necessary to keep them free from dust, by using a soft duster for the former, and by washing the latter twice a week. It should always be remembered that what the consumer wants and pays for is so much light rather than so many cubic feet of gas. And while the quality of the gas supplied in London does not appreciably vary, it is only by using the best burners, fitted in the best and most intelligent manner that satisfactory results can be obtained.
Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879[/I]
and....just for jolly...
Victorian London - Lighting - Gas - shop windows
MEETING A GAS-METER.
OF all the nuisances of living in a cheap neighbourhood, none is to be compared - not even the organ nuisance - to the one of having to meet on your way home some fifty jets of gas, which rush up to you as if they had something confidential to whisper in your ear. Butchers particularly encourage this nuisance. They cannot turn the gas inside their shops, for then there would be a chance of all the joints which were hanging in its proximity being slowly cooked by gas; so they twist it outside and roast the public with it.
A Correspondent writes to say that, during the culinary process, he has had a valuable new hat done to a turn, and a whisker completely burnt to rags. As he has to meet this gaseous broadside every night, he is afraid that the other whisker will soon perish under a similar fire, and he wishes to know if he cannot recover damages for the assault, which lie modestly values at £500£250 each whisker. We will lay the case before MR. BRIEFLESS.
Punch, Jan.-Jun. 1852
Most regular and reliable is a third medium for the lighting-up of London—the gas. The sun and moon may be behind their time, but the gas is always at its post. And in winter, it happens sometimes that it does service all day long. Its only drawback is, that it cannot be had gratis, like the light from the sun, moon, and stars; but the same inconveniences attend the gas on the Continent, and after all, it is cheaper in England than anywhere else. The Germans are mere tyros in the consumption of gas. The stairs of every decent London house, have generally quite as much light as a German shop, and the London shop are more strongly lighted up than the German theatre Butchers, and such-like tradesmen, especially in the smaller streets, burn the gas from one-inch tubes, that John Bull, in purchasing his piece of mutton or beef, may see each vein, each sinew, and each lump of fat. The smaller streets and the markets, are literally inundated with gaslight especially on Saturday evenings. No city on the Continent offers such a sight. In the apothecary’s shops, the light is placed at the back of gigantic glass bottles, filled with coloured liquid, so that fro a distance you see it in the most magnificent colour. The arrangement is convenient for those who are in search of such shop, and it gives the long and broad streets of London a strange and picturesque appearance.
Max Schlesinger, Saunterings in and about London, 1853
Finally, by 1888 Leadenhall Street was actually electrically lit.
Monty
At work right now however heres just a snippet of my research.
"As the intense light obtained from the heating of a pellicle of small particles of non-combustible matter is destined to act an important part in the future of economic and brilliant gas lighting, some particulars of the phenomenon may call for notice.
It may oftentimes have been observed that in the dull embers of burning charcoal from logs of oak or ash some stationary sparks appear at times, giving out an intense white light, which illuminates all surrounding objects, and lasts for several seconds, much resembling in colour and brilliance the light of the electric glow lamp.
It is a property of very small particles to attract invisible heat and disperse it in the form of light. The effect depends principally on the minute size of the radiating atoms, their non-conduction for heat, and its consequent retention, and also their absolute infusibility. A very fine platinum wire held in the out-flame of a candle gives an intense light, and has a collective power for heat by which such a high temperature is induced, that the cobweb wire becomes actually fused.
In the year 1852 some tufts of confervae, or common ‘hair weed’ were sent to me for examination. These were taken from some rock pools called ‘Hell’s Kettles’ in consequence of continuous bubbles of carbonic-acid gas [carbon dioxide] rising to the surface of the water. The filaments of the weed were coated with a white deposit in which diatoms were expected to be seen under the microscope. I found that the coating was amorphous, being nothing else but a very fine deposit of carbonate of lime without struc*ture. I held a few of the filaments in a gas-flame and was struck by the intense light given out. The vegetable substance of the filament was of course consumed but the lime coating, being infusible, retained its form. I then attached a fringe of these filaments from a ring of wire, and suspended it so as to encircle a small solid or Bunsen gas-flame, and got a fine white light arising entirely from incandescence of the lime. I took no further hint of this at the time as the least puff of air was sufficient to break up the fabric.
In the year 1880, having then in view improvements for increasing the intensity of ordinary gas light, I called to mind the foregoing experiment and reproduced it in a more substantial and stable form. I first constructed a cage of very fine platinum wire to inclose a Bunsen gas-flame; knowing that thin platinum in time became disintegrated and wasted by the continued action of gas-flame, I brushed on a protective coat consisting of a paste of very fine fluor-spar. The heat from the flame acted upon both the inner and outer surfaces of the cage. By this means I got a brilliant light from an otherwise invisible flame. The chief objection to this light was that it had a somewhat greenish tinge.
The fluor-spar is quite infusible and is decomposed into its elements by continued heating. The light, though very economical in gas consumption is far surpassed in this respect by the now well-known regenerative lamp, a form which I soon afterwards introduced into the market, but the ‘incandes*cent’ gas-light has the merit of great simplicity, and can be understood and managed by anyone, and consequently has recently been very popular, and improvements will probably be forthcoming that will greatly enhance its use and efficiency.
F.H.Wenham, The English Mechanic, 1894"
and
G[I]as.—The names of the London Gas Companies, with the addresses of their chief offices, are as follows:
The Gas Light and Coke Company, Horseferry-road, S.W.
The London, 26, Southampton-street, Strand.
The South Metropolitan, 589, Old Kent-road.
The Phoenix, 70, Bankside.
The Commercial, Harford-st, Stepney.
The gas delivered by the various companies is of such an illuminating power, that when consumed at the ordinary pressure, at the rate of 5 cubic feet per hour in a No.1 Sugg’s Standard Argand burner, it gives a light equal to 15 sperm candles. The definition of a “candle” is the light given by a pure sperm candle, consuming 120 grains of sperm per hour. The price charged for gas varies from 3s. to 3s. 6d. per 1,000 cubic feet.
THE SERVICE PIPE is the pipe which conducts gas from the company’s main in the street to the consumer’s meter. It is generally laid to just within the precincts of the consumer’s premises, and maintained at the Company’s expense When a new service pipe, or an alteration in the size of an existing one is required, notice must be sent to the gas company’s office, stating the number of gas burners for lighting, gas stoves for cooking, and gas fires for heating it is proposed to use. On taking possession of a house the service pipe is generally found disconnected and capped off in the area. Before making use of it notice must be sent to the gas company, who then send their inspector with a printed form of contract for signature; and this contract is to the effect that the consumer will hold himself responsible for all gas consumed on the premises, and will permit access to the meter by any one of their authorised servants at all reasonable hours.
When an outgoing tenant quits a house leaving a quarter’s gas unpaid, the company cannot make the incoming tenant responsible for such default, or refuse on this account to supply him with gas.
When a stoppage occurs in the service-pipe from the deposit of napthalin, by writing to the gas company’s office men are sent to remove it without any charge being made to the consumer.
THE GAS METER.—In all dwelling houses it is better to employ a “dry” than a “wet’ meter, and better to rent it from the gas company, who will be responsible for its proper working and maintenance, than to buy one. When a 5-light meter is spoken of, it means a meter of sufficient capacity to supply gas for 5 argand burners, each consuming, say from 6 to 8 cubic feet per hour, so that a 5-light meter will be quite sufficient for 8 or 9 ordinary fish-tail burners. The idea that the gas company can force the meter round, or in any way influence its registration in an improper way, is absurd.
Under the “Sale of Gas Acts,” gas consumers have the privilege of having their meters tested should their correctness be doubted at the offices of the Metropolitan Board of Works. These offices are for the northern and eastern divisions at White Lion-street, Shoreditch; for south eastern division at Castle-street, Southwark; and for western division, St. Ann-street, Westminster.
The charge for testing meters is as follows: 1 to 5 light meter inclusive, 6d. each; 10 to 40 light meter inclusive, 1s. each; 50 to 60 light meter inclusive, 2s. each; 80 to 100 light meter inclusive, 3s. each, and so on. Should the Gas Company be proved to be in the wrong they have to pay the expense of testing, which otherwise falls on the consumer.
Gas pipes laid throughout a building should in all cases be of wrought iron and painted with two coats of oil paint. No pipe less than ½ inch internal bore should be permitted. To burn gas as supplied in London economically, the rule is large pipes and low pressure.
The pressure of gas to a house is best regulated by a wet governor —it is an exceedingly simple, durable, and efficient instrument. The mercurial governor is objectionable owing to the contracted gas ways, and the liability of the mercury to get into and destroy the meter. There are innumerable patent regulators, but none work better than the wet governor.
GAS BURNERS.—The argand and fishtail burners, made by Sugg, of Westminster, and supplied by all respectable gasfitters, are on questionably the best. It is often supposed that if a good fishtail or flat flame burner is employed, it burns equally well whatever shape of globe be used; this is not the case, the best form of globe is spherical, with a large opening, say 3 ¼ in. at the bottom, and 3 ½ in. at thc top. Melon or pine shaped globes are bad, saucer shaped are still worse. For reception and bedrooms the opal Christiania shade or globe, with a No: 4 or 5 flat flame stentite burner, gives the best and most agreeable result with the least consumption of gas. The Bronner burner is economical, but must not he used in places exposed to much draught. For basement offices the No. 4 flat flame burner will answer every purpose. The constant complaint of consumers about the “bad gas” either means that the supply of gas is deficient or that it is improperly consumed: with deficient supply it must rest either with the gas company, whose service pipe may be stopped, or with the consumer, whose fittings may be choked up or too small: in the case of bad burners the remedy is an easy one. The comparison on the same chandelier of a No. 5 flat flame burner with 7 ½ .in. Christiania shade, will at once show whether the old burners and globes are or are not of the right kind. And when a good, burner and globe are obtained it is necessary to keep them free from dust, by using a soft duster for the former, and by washing the latter twice a week. It should always be remembered that what the consumer wants and pays for is so much light rather than so many cubic feet of gas. And while the quality of the gas supplied in London does not appreciably vary, it is only by using the best burners, fitted in the best and most intelligent manner that satisfactory results can be obtained.
Charles Dickens (Jr.), Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879[/I]
and....just for jolly...
Victorian London - Lighting - Gas - shop windows
MEETING A GAS-METER.
OF all the nuisances of living in a cheap neighbourhood, none is to be compared - not even the organ nuisance - to the one of having to meet on your way home some fifty jets of gas, which rush up to you as if they had something confidential to whisper in your ear. Butchers particularly encourage this nuisance. They cannot turn the gas inside their shops, for then there would be a chance of all the joints which were hanging in its proximity being slowly cooked by gas; so they twist it outside and roast the public with it.
A Correspondent writes to say that, during the culinary process, he has had a valuable new hat done to a turn, and a whisker completely burnt to rags. As he has to meet this gaseous broadside every night, he is afraid that the other whisker will soon perish under a similar fire, and he wishes to know if he cannot recover damages for the assault, which lie modestly values at £500£250 each whisker. We will lay the case before MR. BRIEFLESS.
Punch, Jan.-Jun. 1852
Most regular and reliable is a third medium for the lighting-up of London—the gas. The sun and moon may be behind their time, but the gas is always at its post. And in winter, it happens sometimes that it does service all day long. Its only drawback is, that it cannot be had gratis, like the light from the sun, moon, and stars; but the same inconveniences attend the gas on the Continent, and after all, it is cheaper in England than anywhere else. The Germans are mere tyros in the consumption of gas. The stairs of every decent London house, have generally quite as much light as a German shop, and the London shop are more strongly lighted up than the German theatre Butchers, and such-like tradesmen, especially in the smaller streets, burn the gas from one-inch tubes, that John Bull, in purchasing his piece of mutton or beef, may see each vein, each sinew, and each lump of fat. The smaller streets and the markets, are literally inundated with gaslight especially on Saturday evenings. No city on the Continent offers such a sight. In the apothecary’s shops, the light is placed at the back of gigantic glass bottles, filled with coloured liquid, so that fro a distance you see it in the most magnificent colour. The arrangement is convenient for those who are in search of such shop, and it gives the long and broad streets of London a strange and picturesque appearance.
Max Schlesinger, Saunterings in and about London, 1853
Finally, by 1888 Leadenhall Street was actually electrically lit.
Monty
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