Los Angeles herald., 1909-05-18

gas trade journals are in an II told
YOU so" mood of expectation over II.
But the public will hope and pray tnat
1t can make good. as it is admitted mat
if it does 60-cent gas is a posslpllity
in every city of a hundred thousand IN
habitants.
But with all the untold millions Of
feet of natural gas that have been used
and the other untold millions that nave
been wasted there is still more thah
double as much natural gas used Ill
the United States as there is arthclal
gas The geological survey places the
annual amount of the natural product
used at over four hundred billion cubic
feet. Add to this the two hundred bill
lion cubic feet of artificial gas used and
it would take a gigantic gas tank TWO
miles in diameter and more than a mile
high to hold it.
1t is estimated that even today, after
the note of alarm over the prospec-
tive depletion of the natural gas sup
ply has been sounded, the annual
waste of natural gas in the United
States amounts to the enormous total
of a billion cubic feet. One well in
Kentucky Is said to have wasted, at
current prices, $3.000,000 worth OF nat
ural gas year for twenty consecutive
years. Some wells have flow OF gas
lVCN
The heating capacity of that amount
of gas is equivalent to that of 10000
bushels of coal or $4,000 barrels of OIL
With the production of natural gas
amounting to over a billion feet per
day, it will be seen that the daily out
put is equivalent to more than mil
lion bushels of coal.
Natural gas is the most perfect fuel
and lighting agent known to man, ana
vet even it cannot show the economical
operation that is shown by common
insect. When Solomon bade the snug
gard to go to the ant, consider her
wavs and he wise, he little thought
that the scientists some thirty centu-
ries later would be called upon to BID
the lighting experts of the world to go
10 the 1rehy and consider its ways
But such is his to do. The firetiy ana
the glowworm possess secrets OF nSht
making that make mans 1eeple e1ort
at producing Cheap light look like q
tallow candle in the monday sun. II
man could produce light with as little
expenditure of heat as the hreny doeS
the gas bill that is now 81 would be
cent.
The first great thinker to investigate
the FREELY and the glowworm IN an
endeavor to learn their light-producing
secrets was Professor Young. He came
TO the early conclusion that the FREELY
was in a class all by itself. His in
vestigations attracted the attention OF
that great student of deep things, Fro
fessor Langley for SO long secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution He
brought into play his polometer-an in
strument which will measure the heat
from the farthest star with the ac-
curacy that a registered thermometer
will measure the heat of room 1t
showed him that the freely can pro-
duce a given amount of light 400 times
as economically as man can.
The FREELY has the gift of lumines-
cence, light without heat. Man can
produce light only by incandescence-
light with heat. 1t is said that for
tune awaits the man who will give the
world a practicable luminescent lamp
1t is true that such lamp may be
made by the use of radium, but that
article is so rare that, the interest on
the money required to buy enough ra-
dium to make light of one candle
power would convert it into most
costly lighting agent. 1t is said that
80 per cent of the energy men use in
generating light is mere waste.
1t is said that in the manufacture of
artificial gas the public pays just about