Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-12-17
A BRILLIANT LIGHT
WONDERS OF THE NEW ILlUMI-
NANT.
ACETYLENE TO THE FRONT
Recent Discovery of Methods which
Promise to Completely Revolution
ize the System of Lighting-Danger
of the Chemical Reduced to a
Minimum.

Minimum.
Professor H. F. Fuller, NJ. A., +
5. Sc, Of Chicago secured a few days
ago The patent for a generator Dy
means Of which the use of that extra
ordinary Illuminating gas called acety-
lene has been made a practical reality
1t is due TO the efforts of Professor
Fuller as a scientist and inventor tnaI
this gas, so recently discovered to be
OF untold economic value in many Of
the practical arts, will probably super
sede all other forms of artificial light
ing.
The value Of Professor Fuller's i'll
Vention will only be appreciated, how
ever after survey Of the properties,
possibilities, and merit of the illumin-
ant for which it is intended.
Acetylene gas, as it is known today,
is regarded in far different light by
the scientific world of chemists than
it has been in the past fifty years by
any experimenters. 1t has really been
known since the time of Sir Humphrey
Davy, and was experimental upon by
that illustrious baronet among Others
OF the innumerable heavy and light
carburetted hydr0gens. The existence
of acetylene was discovered about 1920.
but in all the intervening years since
that time, up to two years ago, it's
properties were suppositious and con-
SAnnpnTlV its n11nufaatuTp 81 10
and unthought of.
The discovery, however, of the il
Illuminating properties of this new gas
was made just two years ago, and, like
a good many Of the important dis
coveries which have been made within
recent years, it was partly an accident
and partly due to the pre-eXistence
Of the electrical current. T. l.. Wilson,
a chemist in osprey, n. c., was the
man who first made known to the
world that it could be produced in
large quantities for commercial pur
poses at a very small COST He was
experimenting one day in his laboratory
to form an alloy of calcium by fusing
coal dust and lime in an electric fur
mace. The product of his labor, a
heavy semimetallic, crystalline mass,
he examined, and found not to be the
cast the whole into a bucket of water.
A violent effervescence Immediately
ensued, and heavy, colorleSs gas with
the characteristic of garlic, arose. He
tested 1t with taper, and it burned
with brilliant white flame. By fur
Their investigation he found that the
product Of the powdered coal and lime
thus fused together in the electric arc
was calcic carbide. Still further he
found that by the simple addition of
water to this carbide the hydrogen of
the water combined with the carbon,
forming the gas acetylene, while the
oxygen of the water combined with
the calcium and formed the precipitate
lime. From that small but important
beginning there has arisen a gigantic
enterprise. Factories for the manu-
facture of the carbide have been estab
lished in various parts OF the country,
notably at osprey, N. c.; Niagara
Falls, st. GATHERINGS, Ontario; La
Porte, n. Y, and Appleton, Wis. 1t
is at these various places that the solid
carbide is made, from which, by the
simple addition Of water, the gas acety-
lene is generated when desired, a gas
which from its chemical significance
is purely a hydro-carbon. At the car
bide factories the degrees of heat used
for fusion are about 5,000 or 500 cleo
trical horse power, by means of which
a ton and a half of the substance can
be manufactured a day.
The acetylene gas is offered to the
market in two forms. The first and
more popular one is that Of the car
bide itself, together with a sheet iron
generator, and the second form is that
Of the compressed gas which has been
generated and iquiied, then placed
in seamless steal tubing
The method of liquifying the gas was
perfected by a noted chemist in the
east. 1t is put in cylinders under 900
pounds Of pressure to the square inch,
and can be shipped anywhere. 1t is
sold like any Illuminating fluid, al
though it is weighed by solid rather
than by liquid measure. This liquid
acetylene is contained in the ordinary
seamless steel tubing used commonly
as carbonic acid cylinders and tested
to 300 pounds pressure. Each cylin-
der is six inches in diameter and four
and one-half feet long. AS soon as the
valve is opened, the gas begins to gen.
crate. The cylinder, containing twenty
pounds of liquid, can be connected with
the ordinary gas pipes in the house.
and will last three months in a ten
room house, and is equal &c 5000 feet
of city gas.
covered by many to be dangerous on