GAS-LIGHT.

WHAT

HAT the dark wintry nights in England were some centuries ago, may be imagined from the circumstance that there were, with but few exceptions, no common high

both serf and freed-man to rush to the rescue of their feudal lord, when forest outlaws, or mail-clad marauders in the service of some neighbouring hostile baron, assailed the chieftain's stronghold. Over marsh and moorland, and & wild wilderness of forest, the midnight beacon would blaze, startling the darkness by its lurid glare, awakening the swineherd in his hut, the hunter on his heather couch, the gosherd beside the fen, the yeoman in his moated grange, the archer in his thatched hovel, and the fisherman beside the lonely ́mere; while the bell of the distant abbey aroused the shaven priest, for the monk to pray and the layman to fight, until either the castle was stormed, or the assailants driven off. In these and in far later times, the solitary beacon that gleamed high above the tall headlands which surround our sea-girt coast, served to alarm our island against an invasion on the part of foreign foes. And many an old man still living can remember the period when, even in populous cities and towns, only a little oil-lamp stood blinking and winking here and there, which on stormy nights was often extinguished, leaving the streets in perfect darkness.

When the streets were unlighted, the old watchman went his nightly rounds, with his long sharp halbert in one hand and his lantern in the other, calling out, "Lantern and a whole candle! Hang out your lights!"—for this was the way many of the London streets were lighted about four hundred years ago, there being a law which compelled a certain number of householders in each street to hang out lanterns with "a whole candle" during the dark nights; and the old watchman thundered at the doors of those who neglected to do so. In Queen Mary's days the watchman had a bell, which he rung at the end of the street every time he passed. Only one hundred years ago, London was so badly watched and lighted, that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen went with a petition to the King, stating that the city was so infested at night by

gangs of lawless men, armed with "bludgeons, pistols, cut lasses," and other weapons, that it was dangerous to go out after dusk, as so many were robbed, wounded, and often murdered. While this was the case in the capital, one may imagine how unprotected the provinces remained. This, it must be remembered, was the age of foot-pads and highwaymen. Before the doors of some of the old houses in London, there is still to be seen, on each side of the posts of the arched iron lamp-rail, an extinguisher, shaped like the old post-boy's horn; this was to thrust the torches or flambeaus in, to extinguish them, after the inmates of the house had been lighted home. Link-boys, or torch-bearers, were as common then as street-sweepers are in the present day, and picked up what they could by lighting passengers along the streets. Then came the age of oil-lamps, about 1762, and we had the lamplighter, with his ladder, oil-can, and cotton wicks, and with tow around his wrist, trimming and cleaning in the day-time; and in the dusk of evening climbing the posts, and "lighting-up.” Then the bold robbers, who carried "pistols, bludgeons, and blunderbusses," began to quit the cities, and to plunder passengers on the highways-for they "loved darkness rather than light." The discovery of Gas, and the application of it for the purpose of lighting our chief towns and cities by night, no doubt did as much good towards checking street robberies as the organisation of the powerful Police-force.

Tenanting as we do a world which is placed as much under the dominion of darkness as of light, without the assistance of artificial light, man's labour would always be checked, and his efforts at improvement after sunset rendered, in many instances, useless. Human observation was, therefore, naturally directed, in the earliest ages, to the most enduring means of procuring this great requisite of agreeable and useful existence. Fatty substances, with a wick inserted in their mass, were used instead of the lighted pine or faggot. But with this inven

tion the improvement of artificial light was stationary for ages. It was not even until towards the middle of the last century that the first clear discovery was made of the present brilliant means of procuring artificial light.

All the different substances which have been used, from the earliest times, for this purpose, have actually been resolved into gas before they underwent the process of combustion. But this fact was unknown until the grand discoveries in chemistry unfolded the properties of the aërial bodies. The fact of inflammable gases constituting the means of light in bitumen and pit-coal, seems first to have been practically observed by a clergyman.

The Rev. Mr. Clayton, in a memoir published in the "Transactions of the Royal Society," in 1739, gives the following very interesting account of his experiments, which furnish the earliest evidence of the possibility of extracting from coal, by means of heat, a permanently elastic fluid of an inflammable

nature.

"Having introduced a quantity of coal into a retort, and placed it over an open fire, at first there came over only phlegm, and afterwards a black oil, and then likewise a spirit arose which I could noways condense; but it forced my lute (the clay employed to close the seams of the retort), or broke my glasses. Once, when it had forced my lute, coming close thereto in order to repair it, I observed that the spirit which issued out caught fire at the flame of the candle, and continued burning with violence as it issued out in a steam, which I blew out and lighted alternately for several times. I then had a mind to try if I could save any of this spirit; in order to do this I took a turbinated receiver, and putting a candle to the pipe of the receiver whilst the spirit rose, I observed that it catched flame, and continued burning at the end of the pipe, though you could not observe what fed the flame. I then blew it out and lighted it again several times; after which I fixed a bladder,

squeezed and void of air, to the pipe of the receiver. The oil and flame descended into the receiver, but the spirit still ascending, blew up the bladder. I then filled a good many bladders therewith, and might have filled an inconceivable number more; for the spirit continued to run for several hours, and filled the bladders almost as fast as a man could have blown them with his mouth; and yet the quantity of coals distilled was inconsiderable.

"I kept this spirit in the bladders a considerable time, and endeavoured several ways to condense it, but in vain; and when I had a mind to divert strangers or friends, I have frequently taken one of these bladders, and pricked a hole therein with a pin, and compressing gently the bladder near the flame of a candle till it once took fire, it would then continue flaming till all the spirit was compressed out of the bladder; which was the more surprising, because no one could discern any difference in the appearance between this bladder and those which are filled with common air."

Mr. Murdoch, of Redruth, in Cornwall, in 1792, seems to have been the first who thought of applying this discovery to any practical purpose. He commenced a series of experiments upon the properties of the gasses contained in different substances, such as peat, wood, and coal; and it occurred to him that by confining the gases in proper vessels, and afterwards expelling them through pipes, they might be employed as a convenient and economical substitute for lamps and candles.

At length, in 1798, Mr. Murdoch publicly exhibited the results of his matured plans, by constructing an apparatus for lighting the Soho Foundry, Birmingham, with suitable arrangements for the purification of the gas. These experiments, Dr. Henry states, were continued with occasional interruptions until the peace of 1802, when the illumination of the Soho manufactory afforded an opportunity of making public

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