Gas machines operated on this principle are made to accommodate a definite number of lamps. After the lamps are lighted, the amount of gas is regulated to suit the number in use. If at any time it is desired to reduce the number of lamps in operation, the gas supply must be regulated to suit the lights left burning. As an illustration, suppose that a plant of ten lamps had been burning and that it was desired to reduce the number to six; four of the lamps are extinguished by turning the levers _C_, which control the gas-cocks. The generator which had been supplying sufficient gas for ten lights will continue to produce the same amount until the lever 6 is turned to reduce the supply of gasoline to the required amount for six lamps. This is done by gradually closing the valve 5 until the lamps again burn brightly. In small plants the least number of lamps that will work satisfactorily at one time is three. Automatic regulators are made for plants of considerable size but do not satisfactorily control the gas when the lamps are reduced below three in number. The gas from these plants may readily be used in kitchen ranges, water heaters and other domestic purposes. Individual plants for operating ranges in restaurants and hotels are in common use. The plants are subject to minor derangements that require correcting as they occur, but as soon as the mechanism and characteristic properties of the plant are known, the correction of any difficulty that may present itself is easily accomplished. [Illustration: FIG. 199.--Gas lamp for use with the central-generator or tube system of gasoline lighting.] =Central-generator Gas Lamps.=--Fig. 199 shows the general construction and arrangement of the parts of the inverted-mantle lamp used with the central-generator system. In outward appearance the lamp is much like any other inverted-mantle gas lamp, but in arrangement of parts it is markedly different. The gas-cock _C_ is larger than that used with the ordinary fixture, because the opening _O_ must carry a larger volume of gas than that for supplying gas to lamps using the Bunsen tube. In the use of lamps with the Bunsen tube, the gas from the mains is mixed with approximately twenty times its volume of air; with a lamp like that of Fig. 199, where the mixture has already been made in the generator, the conducting tubes and the gas-cock must be relatively very large. The screen _S_, which corresponds to the screen _S_ in Fig. 192, is quite as necessary as in the other lamp. It not only assures a uniform distribution of the gas in the tube but it prevents the mantle from being broken when the burner is lighted. If this screen is punctured, the explosion which takes place when the burner is lighted will be sufficient to blow out the bottom of the mantle. The burner tip _T_ is practically the same as that used with other mantle lamps.