The Abbeville messenger. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1884-1887, 1886-11-23
NATURAL GAS.
How 1t is Utilized in MANY
Ways at P~ittsburg.
Bringing the Gus Through Pipes from
Wells Twenty Miles Away.

The greatest curiosity about Pittsburg,
says a letter to the Chicago Herald, is
the working Of the natural gas and thc
varied uses to which it is put. In the
early morning, rs the train speeds along
the left bank of tho Allegheny, the hun
drels of flaming lights which adorn the
hillsides afforl a curious spectacle. Pipes
stick up from the ground perhaps twenty
feet or more, and from them shoot I'D into
the heavens great tongues of fame-a
hundred times greater in volume than the
electric light and ten times rs brilliant.
These pipes are the air vents of the main
conduits, which carry the gas to its point
OF utilization. These vents are necessary.
otherwise the conduits would burst from
the tremendous pressure of gas from the
wells. On most of the gas pipe lines the
vent pipes are left burning night and day,
and the effect at night Is most brilliant.
Few people realize the extent to which
the natural gas is now used about Pitts
burg. 1t has taken the place of fuel at all
the glass works, in all the blast furnaces
and steel works and is rapidly being intro
duced into the private houses, hotels,
etc., for heating, cooking, and lighting.
There are several companies that have the
right to pipe the streets, and the
old gas companies have about yielded up
the ghost. For purposes of illumination
the new gas is not yet perfected, but for
heating and cooking the mysterious va
por is all that could be asked. The pas
burns with an intense heat and hence is
especially valuable at blast furnaces, and
for all other uses where high temperature
IS required. So hot is the flame from a
three-inch pipe that a man cannot ap-
proach it. No man can light a fve-inch
exhaust pipe, for it would burn him up
before he could get away. All such
pipes are lighted by firing a skyrocket
through the escaping gas, when the sud-
denly ignitcd vapor shoots hundreds of
feet into the heavens.
Most OF the natural gas in use about
P.ttsourg comes from the gas wells of
Washington County, from eighteen to
twenty-five miles away. The gas is con-
veyed in twenty-inch mains of cast-iron.
made two inches thick, to stand the
enormous pressure of the vapor from
natures mysterious reservoir. It NAV
seem incredible, but 1 was told that the
pressure upon these mains at the point
the gas comes up from mother earth is
from eight hundred to one thousand
pounds to the square inch. AT the first
vent-pipe, which may be a mile away
from the we'll, the gas shoots up like
steam from a safety valve, and with al
most MS much of a Kissing noise. Light it |
and the flame is carried a hundred feet in
the air. It would be impracticable to
use the gas at all under such Il pres .ure.
80, when it gets to the city, recourse is
had to a division of the force by means
OF pipes within pipes. A series of pipes,
one within the other, are laid within the
larger main, and these take up the gas
and attribute it, each division lowering
the pressure according to the size of the
pipe which holds it. Thus a half inch
pipe will carry gas enough and with
force enough to run a blast furnace, and
a pipe no bigger than the stem of a clay
pipe will carry enough to light, warm
and provide cooking fuel for q house of
twelve to fifteen rooms.
The supply of gas seems inexhaustible.
Wherever petroleum is found, there by
sinking a few hundred feet below the oil
belt will be found the gas in
its rock ribbed reservoir. They usu.
ally get oil at about 1860 feet,
but for gas they must sink at
least I, 500. So far the sinking has been
easy enough, for the gas men have only
to hunt up the abandoned oil wells, and
continue them on down until the curious
vapor is struck. That is oil there is to
be done, except to imprison the escaping
product and confne it to the mains.
Nature does oil the rest. There seems
to be no diminution of the flow or pres
sure, even from those wells that have
been longest in use, and hence capital
which when the discovery was first made
was chary of investing in pipes and
mains, has now quite recovered conf
dence. The idea that the time NAV
come when the gas will be piped and
carried away to other cities is already
being talked up in Pittsburg, and the
prospect OF lighting and henting Cincin-
natl and nerbaps Cleveland with na+,ro,