The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-06-10
ABOUT NEW lLLUMlNANT.
Experiments Made With it Show
Gas Meter May Be Superseded.
washington Herald.)

Washingtonians who have had trou-
Ole over the eccentricities of the gas
meter and have been annoyed by TIE
size OF their gas bills may yet be re-
leased from thralldom if one-half that
is claimed for a new illuminant comes
true
Chemists have been reading for some
time of new lighting agent manu-
Iactured in Germany, and in several
instances they have imported a little
OF the product for experimental pur-
poses. short time ago an evening
was spent by several persons interest
ed in the matter i'm the laboratory OF
William j. HallOck of Columbia uni
versity, New York, where he gave
lecture on the character of the new il
luminant.
The name of the new product is
blau-gas, and it comes in handy cyl
inders containing from a half kilo, OF
bit over a pound each, up to twenty
five kilos. 1t is just ordinary illum-
mating gas liquefed.
Professor HallOck began his setting
forth of the advantages of the new
gas by quoting its probable price,
when put on the market, at 10 cents
pound. Twenty-Five pounds, the con-
tents of a ten-kilo cylinder, would, he
said, keep a fifty candle-power burner
going four hours a day for four months
at a cost of $3.50 That comes to a
little less than seven-tenths of cent
an hour.
Professor Hallock started to light up
the lecture room with blaugas. To a
large cylinder of the illuminant he had
attached a number of fine copper pipes
that looked like ordinary copper wire
and were just as flexible. These he
bent around at Will. and ran out to the
various parts of the ROOM They had
gas burners on the end. Turning or
the gas and touching a match in the
old fashioned way, the professor light
ed up the place with what was exact
ly like the light of plenty of ordinary
gas jets.
The ordinary gas. the speaker said,
had its good >points, but was horribly
inefficient. He left it go at that, with
out celebrating.
The blaugas. if sold at the same
price as i'm Germany, would cost some
what more. But you would know how
much you were getting without
a meter and monthly readings. 1t was
not necessary To have gas pipes laid
The small wire-like pipes could be run
around house at will and hung down
from the ceiling like electric light
wires.
he could use blaugas No need of be
ing within piping distance of a gas
main. In country houses cylinders Of
Elaugas could be delivered, just like
cans of kerosene. The speaker pre-
dicted that the new illuminant would
solve the lighting problem everywhere
where there were no lighting plants in
stalled.
Liquid gas, Professors HaIlock as
sured the chemists, would keep indcf-
initely. One could keep enough for
years ahead; could sell il with the
house or will it to his heirs when he
died. 1t was unaffected by atmospher-
ic and temperature changes.
BlaugaS is named after Professor
Herman Blau of Augsburg. Germany.
who invented il. After being made by
the ordinary process, il is liquidated
by cooling and compression. The prod
uct is now on the market in Ger
manyi but nothing has been done so
far to manufacture it in America
Professor HallOck's cylinders were
bought in Germany and brought here.
The general idea was that bottled
gas would have several advantages
over the ordinary sort. 1t could be
made wherever coke was cheapest and
most plentiful. Cheapness would re-
suit as only the product would have
to be transported instead of the bulky
raw material As purchasers could
buy liquid gas when and where they
chose, they could refuse 10 take gas
that did not come up to the proper
quality or say to the gas man:
-@Gas man, that last bottle of gas you
left was not up to the mark; it mustn't
happen again"
Insurance interests. 1t is said, will be
likely 10 welcome the new form of il
Elimination. One of the troubles of
firemen in the city is with broken gas
pipes which generate explosions. 1t IS
often impossible to shut off the gas
in a burning building.
The firemen of the future will no
doubt solve the problem by carrying
out the gas bottle.
As for danger to life from leaky fix
lures, drop lights and other such
causes of frequent accidental death, il
is likely to be reduced by the ease OF
running the One-siXteenth-inch copper
gas pipes about TO any spot desired, as
one would with electric wires.