Abstract
AMONG the papers read in Section G, after the President had delivered his address, was one by Mr. Alex. C. Humphreys, on water-gas in the United States. Water-gas is produced by the decomposition of steam by incandescent carbon. The two ways of effecting the decomposition, the intermittent and continuous, were described. In the first a cupola furnace is used: a blast of air raises the fuel to the necessary temperature; when this is effected the air is cut off and steam turned on, the blowing in of air and steam occurring intermittently. In the continuous process, steam is passed uninterruptedly through retorts containing carbon, which are heated externally, or steam and air are forced in continuously through a cupola furnace; but the latter process has the disadvantage of the resultant gases containing nitrogen. Water-gas has no light-giving properties so that it has to be carburized for illuminating purposes, or employed to raise some solid substance to a white heat. The different processes in vogue were described, and their theory explained. In conclusion the author gave expression to the belief that the day of gas, fuel-gas, was rapidly approaching; that even the great rival of gas, the electric light, may yet be dependent on it for the cheapest means of producing the electric current. Then will the gas engineer and the electrical engineer, shoulder to shoulder, be striving to correct the present wasteful strains on Nature's storehouses.
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The Mechanical Papers at the British Association. Nature 40, 630–631 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040630a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040630a0