It will then be mixed with the gas from
the retorts, and will supply a far higher illuminant than we at
present possess. In parts of the United Kingdom, such as South Wales,
where gas coal is dear, and anthracite and bastard coals are cheap,
water gas highly carbureted will entirely supplant coal gas, with a
saving of fifty per cent. on the prices now existing in those
districts. While these changes have been going on, and while improved
methods of manufacture have been tending to the cheapening of gas, it
will have been steadily growing in public favor as a fuel; and if in
years to come the generation of electricity should have been so
cheapened as to allow it to successfully compete with gas as an
illuminant, the gas works will still be found as busy as of yore, the
holder of gas shares as contented as to-day; for with a desire for a
purer atmosphere and a white mist instead of a yellow fog, gas will
have largely supplanted coal as a fuel, and gas stoves, properly
ventilated and free from the reproaches I have hurled at them
to-night, will burn a gas far higher in its heating power, far better
in its power of bearing illuminating hydrocarbons, and free from
poisonous constituents.
When the demand for it arises, hydrogen gas can be made as cheaply as
water gas itself, and when time is ripe for a fuel gas for use in the
house, it is hydrogen and not water gas which will form its basis.
With carbureted water gas and 20 per cent.
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