The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-12-18
GAS WAS FIRST
PUBLIC UTILITY
Substance Put to Use in 1882
Spurs Modern Progress.
FEARED AS A wild SPIRIT"
Artificial Illuminant Discovered in
16O9-First Public Street to Pc
Lighted With Gas Was Pail Mar,
London, in 1807-FutiIe Efforts OF
AIchcmists to Change Baser Metals
Into Gold Led to Accidental Discov-
cry of Artificial Gas.

cry of Artificial Gas.
The utilization Of gas for lighting
marked the most important step In
the progress of modern illumination,
according to the Illinois Committee
on Public Utility.
Gas was discovered about the mid
die of the Seventeenth century, but 1t
was not until the late Eighteenth cen
fury that man learned how to make
1t serve a useful purpose, members
OF the committee stated
Gas was the first public utility.
Later came electricity, the telephone
and the electric railway. These have
made possible in less than a century
greater progress than in all the thou
sands Of years of civilization preced-
ing.
Achievement of Alchemy.
Mans eternal search for riches and
the futile endeavors of alchemists to
change the baser metals into gold led
to the accidental discovery of artificial
gas. Although alchemy was fruitless
regarding the metals that led to many
important discoveries.
John Baptiste van Helmont of Brus-
sells studied and practiced medicine
and later turned to chemistry and re-
search work in the Seventeenth CEN
fury. In the course of his expert
menta with fuels in 1909 he discovered
that they yielded what he described
as "a wild spirit He found this
spirit could be produced by means
Of combustion, fermentation and the
action of acids on limestone.
So phantomllke and elusive was
Van Helmont's discovery that he
named it after "geist," the old Ger
man word for spirit. 1t was nearly
200 years after Van Helmont's discov-
cry before practical steps were taken
to harness this elusive spirit.
Natural gas was found in the Seven
teenth century in England, one of the
first descriptions of it being that OF
Thomas Shirley in which he mentions
that his attention was directed to what
was considered to be spring where
I the water did burn like oyle'' and Ibid
bowie and heave like water in a pot
On investigation he found this to
"arise from a strong breath, as 1t
were, which ignited on the approach
OF lighted candle and "did burn
bright and vigorous
Found Esprit" Would Burn.
DR. John Clayton, Yorkshire min
lister with prediction for the
sciences, robbed the spirit of some of
it's elusive qualities by experiments
between 1860 and 1870. Heating
shelly coal' in closed vessel he
found that spirit which issued out
caught fire at the flame Of candle.
the gas in bladders and picking holes
in them with a pin, then lighting the
gas with candle.
William Murdoch, in 1892, by distill-
ing coal through an iron retOrt and
conducting the gas through 20 feet OF
timed and coppered tubes, succeeded |
In lighting his home at Redruth, in |
Cornwall. Later he built an apparatus
on a larger scale and lighted the fac
tory of James Watt, developer of the |
steam engine, for whom he was con-
struction and erection engineer.
Murdoch was regarded as queer
Young man. He was addicted to wear
ing wooden hats and also made Ian
tern by fixing a tube in the neck Of
gas-filled bladder. The sight of him
wandering about the streets at night
with this strange beacon filled the
with dismay, and some
OF the good people suspected him OF
being in league with Lucifer.
On May IS, 1904, Frederick Albert
Winsor, a German, obtained the first
English patent for gas making pur-
poses. The first public street lighting
with gas was in Pail Mall, London,
January %, 1907. In April 1872, par
lament granted charter to ''The Lon
ion and Westminster Gas, Light and
Coke Company" and thus the first
gas company in the world came into
being.