“Another advantage gained by the small quantity of gas required for a flame, is the proportionate diminution of heat arising from the lights. The quantities of heat and light produced by the combustion of inflammable gases are by no means in the same constant relation to each other; one frequently increases, whilst the other diminishes; and this is eminently the case when coal gas and oil gas are burned against each other. The quantity of heat liberated is, speaking generally, as the quantity of gas consumed, and this is greatest with the coal gas; but the quantity of light is nearly as the quantity of carbon that is well burnt in the flame, and this is greatest in the oil gas.” “The very compact state in which the apparatus necessary for the decomposition of oil can be placed, the slight degree of attention required, its certainty of action, its cleanliness, and the numerous applications which it admits of in the use of its furnace for other convenient or economical purposes, render it not only unobjectionable, but useful in manufactories and establishments; and these favourable circumstances are accompanied, not from any inferiority in the flame or increased expense, but by an improved state of the first, and saving in the latter.” “Messrs. Taylor have shewn great ingenuity in the construction of their whole apparatus, but the washer and gasometer deserve particular notice for their remarkable simplicity also. In the washer, two planes are fixed in a box or cistern, in a direction not quite horizontal, but inclined a little in opposite directions; the planes are traversed nearly across by slips of wood or metal, fixed in an inclined position on the under surface, and which alternately touch one side of the cistern, leaving the other open and free. These planes being immersed in water, the gas is thrown in under the lowest ridge, and by its ascending power is made to traverse backward and forward along the ridges fixed on the planes, until it escapes at the highest part of the uppermost ridge. Thus, with a pressure of five or six inches of water only, it is made to pass through a distance of fourteen or sixteen feet under the surface of the fluid, and becomes well washed.” “The smaller gasometers are made of thin plate iron, and being placed in a frame of light iron work, look more like ornamental stoves than the bulky appendages to a gas apparatus, which they supply. The larger ones are made very light, and when in pieces very portable, by being constructed of a frame of wood work, in the edges of which are deep narrow grooves; plates of iron fit into these grooves, which being caulked in and painted over, make a light and tight apparatus. These are easily put together in any place, and may therefore be introduced into a small apartment, or other confined space, where a gasometer already made up would not enter.” For the following additional information on this subject, I am indebted to Messrs. J. and P. Taylor.