The first known application of coal gas to illumination was made, in 1792, by Mr. William Murdoch, engineer at the Soho manufactory, to whose great ingenuity the world is also indebted for the invention of the first plan of a steam locomotive engine.[10] He was at that time occupied in superintending the fitting up of steam engines for the Cornish mines, and his attention having been directed to the properties of gas issuing from coal, he instituted a series of experiments on carburretted hydrogen, the practical result of which was the lighting of his house and offices, at Redruth, with coal gas. The mines at which Mr. Murdoch worked being some miles distant from his house, he was in the constant practice of filling a bladder with coal gas, in the neck of which he fixed a metallic tube with a small orifice, through which the gas issued. The lighted gas issuing through the tube served as a lantern to light his way; and as he thus proceeded along the road with the light issuing from the bladder, the country people looked upon him as a wizard. The gas was generated by Mr. Murdoch in an iron retort, and collected in a common gasometer, from which it was conducted in pipes to the rooms to be lighted. He also, in an early stage of the invention, contrived a means for making the gas portable, by compressing it into strong vessels; a plan which, a few years since, was adopted by the Portable Gas Company in London. Mr. Murdoch having proved the practicability of illumination by gas generated from coal, he continued his experiments to facilitate the manufacture of the gas on a large scale, and for its more perfect purification. The first public display of its illuminating power was made at the rejoicings for the peace of Amiens, in 1802, on which occasion part of the work-shops of Messrs. Boulton and Watt, at Soho, was brilliantly illuminated with coal gas by Mr. Murdoch. In 1805, Messrs. Phillips and Lee, of Manchester, had their extensive cotton mill fitted up with gas apparatus, under the superintendence of Mr. Murdoch, and the quantity of light given out by the burners in all parts of the cotton mill was equal to that of 3,000 candles.[11]