Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1889-01-18
THE MANUFACTURE or GAS.
a Simple Explanation of the Way IIiu-
minating Gas Is Made.

a Simple Explanation of the Way IIlu-
minating Gas Is Made.
How few people can inteligibly explain
| some of the most ordinary things in
every day life. An official of the city
| gas works was heard TO say not long ago
| that if he might judge bv 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 understand, he said,
that it comes out of soft coal, but they
are ignorant of tine process by which it is
extracted. We do not doubt this at all
for it is the common things that we are
apt to overlook iii our search for infor-
nation.
Now, let us give you a simple explana-
ton Of gas making. Break up piece of
bituminous coal into small fragments and
ell the bowl of n clay tobacco pipe with
them. Cover the mouth of the bowl
with wet clay and then thoroughly dry
it. Put the bowl of the pipe into fire
where it will get red hot, and you will
soon see a yellowish smoke come out of
the stem, and if you touch light to the
smoke it will burn brightly, for it is
nothing more or less than the gas from
the coal.
You can purify and collect this gas in
a simple way. Fill n bottle with water
and turn it upside down in bowl of
water. You know the water will not
run out of the bottle because the air pres
sure on the water in the bowl will pre-
vent 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 great deal of gas the bottle would
be entirely filled with it.
You have seen the immense quantities
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 small part of what
was in the coal having gone off with the
gas. Take the clay covering off your
pipe and you viii find the bowl filled
with this coke.
Now, that is precisely the way gas is
made Ill large quantities at the gas works
Instead of pipe bowls they use big re-
torts, and these are heated red hot by
furnace, for the fire must DO outside of
the retorts. Heating coal red hot i'll a
closed retort is different from burning it
III the open air. A largo pipe from the
retort carries off the product of the coal,
consisting of steam, tar, air and ammo
mia, as well as gas. The ammonia and
the tar go into 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 bottom,
and stand, or rather swing, in tanks of
water, being adjusted by laaans of
weights. AS the gas comes into them
they rise up out of the water, tut the
bottoms are always submerged SO that
the gas cannot escape. The large Gas
pipes, or mains as they are called. con
meet with the holders and conduct the
gas through the streets to the houses
where it is used. The pressure is given
to the gas by the weight of the iron hold
ers, which are always bearing down on
the gas they contain.