Transcriber’s Notes Text printed in italics has been transcribed _between underscores_, bold face text =between equal signs=. ~Text between tildes~ represents blackletter text, ^{text} represents superscript text. Small capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS. More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text. [Illustration: _Pl. II._ _Accums’, Description of Gas Works._ _to Face Title._ _Mulholland Del^{t}._ _W. Read, Sculp^{t}. Maiden Lane, Covent Garden._ GAS LIGHT APPARATUS, _Erected by Order of Government at =THE ROYAL MINT=, by Fredc^{k}. Accum._] DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING COAL GAS, FOR THE LIGHTING OF STREETS HOUSES, AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS, WITH ELEVATIONS, SECTIONS, AND PLANS _OF THE MOST IMPROVED SORTS OF APPARATUS_ NOW EMPLOYED AT THE ~Gas Works in London,~ AND THE PRINCIPAL PROVINCIAL TOWNS OF GREAT BRITAIN; _Accompanied with comparative Estimates, exhibiting the most Economical Mode of procuring this species of Light_. [Illustration: _Plate I._] _WITH SEVEN PLATES._ BY FREDRICK ACCUM, _OPERATIVE CHEMIST_, Lecturer on Practical Chemistry, on Mineralogy, and on Chemistry applied to the Arts and Manufactures; Member o£ the Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the Limnæan Society, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, &c. &c. ~London.~ PRINTED FOR THOMAS BOYS. N^{o}. 7. LUDGATE-HILL. (FROM N^{o}. 3, PATERNOSTER ROW) MDCCCXIX. PREFACE. _Compton Street, Soho._ The extraordinarily rapid progress which the recent invention of lighting with coal gas has made in this country, is perhaps without a parallel in the history of the useful arts. It was an invention not exempted from the misfortune common to all innovations on established practises, of encountering opposition, but it had the fortune common to few, of obtaining an almost instantaneous triumph. A single exhibition of the gas lights in actual use was sufficient to determine the public judgment in favour of the new mode of illumination; to see was in this case, indeed to believe. The legislature responsive to the popular voice, and fortified in its responsibility, by the results of special enquiries which were ordered to be made into the merits of the invention, and in which I had the good fortune to be professionally engaged, gave the most liberal and decided encouragement to its adoption. Capital, often wanting even in this opulent country for undertakings of magnitude, came to the promotion of the new art of procuring and distributing light in overflowing abundance; and already ere many years are elapsed, such has been the rapidity with which the gas light illumination has advanced, that there is not a city and scarcely a town of any note in Great Britain, in which the art of lighting by means of gas, has not been carried into effect, or in which active measures are not in progress, to participate in the benefit of this important discovery.