Modern Gasworks Practice

INTRODUCTION 3 nothing came of this, but that things were taking a turn, for the better is indicated by the faet tliat in 1855 the premier Company was enabled to make a distribution of 6 per cent. At one time there. were no fewer than thirteen Companies supplying London, but amalgamation proceeded apace, and to-day the enormous require-ments of the metropolis are in the hånds of merely three Companies. The year 1850 witnessed the introduction by Sir William Perkin of the great aniline industry —at one time, unhappily, almost entirely lost to Germany; but partly regained as a result of the exigencies arising from the outbreak of the European War. At tlie commencement of the war it was at last realized that as a factor in warfare the manufacture of dyes is a “ key ” industry, and it was, moreover, almost a mono-poly of our principal adversary. In faet, both the blue of the Navy and the khaki of the Army were produced with. German dy es. By the most praiseworthy eflorts of the British chemist and manufacturer the danger of a dye famine was, however, averted, and ultimately the production of khaki and navy-blue dyes outran. the production of fabrics. The war, therefore, pro vided an opportunity for the country to reclaim an industry which was hers by right; and though, as a result of our apathy in the past, the leeway to be made good is extensive, it can at least be said that the German monopoly is not altogether unchallenged. In 1860 the Metropolis Gas Act came into force, and from then. onwards the innumerable concerns which. had sprang up in London and the provinces trudged along in a more or less lethargic manner to the accompaniment of inereasing profits and abundant dividends. There came, however, a rude awakeniiig in 1883, when the possibilities of electric light were first realized. Shareholders parted with. their lioldings in apprehension, and the quoted prices of gas stock dropped materially; but far-seeing individuals took the opportunity for inereasing their Investments, and soon had causc to be gratified at their wisdom. As it happened, the coming of electricity inspired the renascence of the gas industry. Seeing that the uses of gas for lighting were likely to undergo restriction, engineers turned their attention to other means of disposal; and the perfeetion to which. countless appliances have been brought to-day is in no small measure due to the stimulating influence of the rival commodity. As compared with the practice of the latter half of the nineteenth Century, the gas engineering of the present day is chiefly remarkable for the extent to which scientific and economic methods, based on avoidance of waste with maximum effi-ciency of recovery, liave slowly but surely asserted themselves. In the processes involved the Chemical specialist has played his role, but the ingenious modern plant for carrying out the ideas is due entirely to the engineer ; and while the staff-officers of gasworks of any size must primarily possess the general qualifications of the civil engineer, an auxiliary knowledge of Chemical science is of the greatest value. There is evidence on every hånd that the members of the carbonization industries are learning to recognize more and more that the rule-of-thumb methods of the past Century were not worthy of a process which contains such unlimited possibilities, the result being that scientific and practical co-ordination has come to be regarded as the sine qua non in the quest for the ideal.