The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-09-29
HOW GAS is MADE.
A Simple Explanation of the Manufacture
of Illuminating Gas.


How few people can intelligibly ex
plain some of the most ordinary things
in everyday life. An official of the
city gas works was heard to say not
long ago that if he might judge by the
number of times he was asked for
information, not more than two people
in ten know how common Illuminating
gas is made. They all seem to under
stand, he said, that it comes out of soft
coal, but they are ignorant of the pro-
cess by which it is extracted. We do
not doubt this at all, for, as we have
said to you several times, it is the very
common things that we are apt to over
look in our search for information. You
will understand, therefore, why we
select subjects to talk about with which
you and everybody else ought to be
familiar.
Now, let us give you very simple
piece of bituminous coal into small
fragments and fill the bowl of a clay
Nobacco pipe with them. Cover the
Mouth of the bowl with wet clay and
:, uten thoroughly dry it. Put the bowl
OF the pipe into a fire where it will get
red hot, and you will soon see yellow
ish smoke come out of the stem, and if
you touch a light to the smoke it will
burn brightly, for it is nothing more
nor less than the gas from the coal.
You can purify and collect this gas
in very simple way. Fill bottle
with water and turn it upside down in
a bowl of water. You know the water
will not run out of the bottle because
the air pressure on the water in the
bowl will prevent it. Put the end of
the pipe-stem under the mouth of the
! bottle, and the gas will bubble up
through the water into the bottle,
gradually displacing the water, and if
the pipe were large enough to make a
great deal of gas, the bottle would be
entirely filled with it.
You have seen the immense quanti-
ties of coke which they have at the gas
works; that is what is left of the coal
after the gas has been burned out of it..
Coke is carbon, only a small part of
what was in the coal having gone off
with the gas Take the clay covering
off your pipe and you will find the
bowl filled with this coke.
Now, that is precisely the way gas is
made in large quantities at the gas
works. Instead of pipe bowls they use
big retorts, and these are heated red
hot by furnace, for the fire must be
outside of the retorts. Heating coal
red-hot in closed retort is very diff
ferent from burning it in the open air.
A large pipe from the retort carries off
the product of the coal, consisting of
steam, tar, air and ammonia, as well
as gas. The ammonia and the tar go
-lintn tanks, and the gas into coolers,
and then over lime, which takes up
the acids in it into the immense iron
gas-holders which you have seen at the
works.
These holders are open at the bot
| tom, and stand or rather swing, in
tanks of water being adjusted by
means of weights. AS the gas comes
into them they rise up out of the water,
but the bottoms are always submerged,
so that the gas can not escape. The
large gas-pipes, or mains, as they are
called, connect with the holders and
conduct the gas through the streets to
the houses where it is used. The pres
sure is given to the gas by the weight
of the iron holders, which are always
bearing down on the gas they contain.
IN Y. Graphic.