MORE LIGHT.
GAS Shares, says the Echo, have risen on 'Change this week from 1 to 2 per cent., apparently in consequence of the Bills prepared by the Metropolitan Board and the City of London for buying up the existing Companies, and supplying all London from gigantic D6pota outside the Metropolis, where it will be safe and easy thoroughly to purify the pit At the same time, it is stated, new Gas Companies are starting everywhere, the promoters finding that wherever they can get a monopoly in a town, or even in a village, they can earn from 8 to 15 per cent., and that their shares will then run up till new investors receive little more than 5 per cent. That is a very curious proof of investors' confidence in, the permanence of the demand for gas, a confidence which was not originally felt, but has been very gradually acquired. The old idea used to be that gas might any day be superseded, possibly by the electric light, and any kind of invention to give light was studied with the eager interest of men who had a pecuniary interest in the investigation. The reign of Gas, however, has been long, and has never been seriously threat- ened. The electric light, the only competitor which struck the public fancy, has been discredited, the public believing, perhaps a little hastily, that though useful for certain purposes, it can never be made cheaply ; and refusing, after a long series of disappointments, to look seriously into any other of the many inventions which have been pressed upon its notice. And in truth, if the public got fair-play, it would be difficult to conceive of any probable substitute for gas. If it were sup- plied as it might be, even with the present price of coals, of a quality absolutely pure—that is, so pure that in three years it will net discolour a whitewashed ceiling within three feet of the flame—and at 4s. per 1,000 cubic feet, gas would be almost un- assailable. At that rate, and with pure light, it would be very cheap ; it has the advantage of warning those who use it when anything has gone wrong, and it gives marvellously little trouble, indeed as compared with lamps and candles scarcely any at all. It is difficult, if the householder turns the meter on full, but buys burners according to the size he wants the flame to be, to waste gas ; and if the meter is never turned off there is little risk of explosion or escape, both of which accidents occur most frequently from a careless habit of turning off gas at the meter, instead of shutting the stop-cock for each burner. The con- venience of gas is manifest, and has given it a hold upon buyers with which the oil-sellers, as yet the great rivals of the gas shareholders, have hitherto been unable to contend.
It is doubtful, nevertheless, whether the Gas Shareholders are not a little too confident, whether ingenuity has reached its limit in the production of a good light, or whether, even if coal is always to be the substance employed, the ultimate method of sell- ing gas may not be by the gallon, to be kept in the cellar like beer, and distributed over the house by private pipes. The just dis- like to coal-gas increases rather than diminishes with the improve- ments in furniture and decoration ; many substances will yield a superior fluid, though none, as yet, so cheaply and conveniently; and the coal gas-makers may one day find themselves in the position of the tallow-melters, who have suffered cruelly of late years from the competition of purified mineral and other oils, and the consequent improvement in the manufacture of lamps. This latter has been quite extraordinary in all branches, and coupled with the reduction in the price of oil, threatens to drive tallow-candles entirely out of the market. They have totally ceased to be used by the well-to-do, who find that an oil-lamp gives a better light, that any kind of composition-candle is less disgusting than tallow and scarcely more dear, and that even the rush-light can be dispensed with as a feeble but luting nght in the bed-room or the nursery. The composition night-light is as cheap as the rush-light, is less dangerous, and gives all the little illumination required. The rush-wick, by the way, which emitted no smell and required no snuffing, never re- ceived the scientific attention it deserved. Half the houses in London now possess no snuffers, even inferior candlesticks are made without them, and the new generation is unaware of the. annoyance its fathers suffered from the necessity of snuffing the, wick in the centre of a column of stinking tallow. Oil, victorious over tallow, now threatens the improved candles, and but for one or two puzzles in the way of the lamp-maker would, we think, drive the patent candle-makers out of the field. The lamp-makers give us in the "Moderator," "Silber," " Pillischer," "Duplex," and a host of other lamps, lights nearly perfect in their brilliancy and softness ; the dread of explosion has been banished by improved. manufacture, and the oils are becoming marvellously cheap. Coke oil, which is nearly as perfect as an oil can be, is now 4s. 6d. a gallon retail, and " Crystal " is only 2s., and is very nearly as useful. This oil as yet has the drawback that unless prepared and kept with extreme care, it gives off a little smell ; but still this can be avoided, and the oil in a good lamp of any sort gives a placid, comfortable, and ample light for a farthing an hour. Four" Silbers," say, for choice, fed with crystal oil, will, if properly disposed, light any room well, and only cost about a penny an hour. The lamps themselves are as good and as pretty as they can be, and a cheap oil lamp for the poor people. has been introduced which is said to be very good—we have not seen it—and to be selling in enormous numbers at from half-a- crown to three and sixpence a-piece.
Still the oil lamp has two or three drawbacks which give an easy victory to gas, and for some purposes, to the paraffin-candle, and householders wonder whether they will ever be overcome. One of these is that the light cannot be turned off and on readily. You can put out a lamp at will as easily ass gas-burner if the oil is not of a smelling kind, but if you want it ten minutes afterwards, lighting it again is quite a business. Then the lamp requires for its perfection a chimney, and the chimney is at present a tall tube' of glass, which it is very difficult to keep straight, and which, if not kept straight, will "fly," sometimes with emphasis and a disagreeable splutter of glass. The cost of these chimneys is a distinct element in the cost of lamps, and they will have before the end comes to be either superseded, which seems possible, the globe itself being made by the introduction of a tight waist to do duty for the chimney, or they must be made of some very much less brittle material,—also, we should say, quite a possibility. The third drawback, however, is the most serious, and is the one which the makers should ask the savants to consider on their behalf, and that is the wick. The present round cotton wick is a nuisance, and it is indispensable. It is possible, we con- ceive, by raising the oil reservoir above the light, to get rid ultimately of machinery for pumping, but it is not possible to make cotton wicks which require no trouble in fitting, trimming, relighting, and keeping at their proper height. If we could but have a wick which would suck up the oil, yet would remain itself always unconsumed, or if we could dispense with the wick and force the oil, as we do gas, into the burner in precisely the proper stream, so that, like gas, it. should all be consumed, yet never be deficient, and the light be "strong without rage, without o'erflowing, full," the modern lamp would be as perfect as lamp can be, till we have discovered some fluid which gives a better light at less price, or have learnt the art of burning water without explosion. A lamp with such a wick, or without any wick, would need no machinery, involve no trouble, and go out as gas does, whenever it was bid, thus placing oil for the first time on a full equality both with gas and the best candles. If the chimney dis- appeared also the lamp could be moved about withoub trouble, and the middle-class householder could have half-a-dozen lamps in his rooms, and never need a servant to take care of them. We cannot venture to predict whether such an improvement is peed--
b„lie,Aw,lheLlerpan," hforstuub
whether the wick, with its endless antiquity, can be abolished by a scientific decree ; but we know that if either result could be secured, the inventor who secured it, and called his patent the
any mandkeerisa fortune suchcatisn, even in these daysyoar of coal-regraters, loan-jobbers, and gigantic barrowmen, would almost make him respectable in first-class City eyes.
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