HOOKER'S INCANDESCENT GASLIGHT.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7612, 8 December 1886, Page 4

HOOKER'S INCANDESCENT GASLIGHT.

' (BY OUU OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Hastings, December 7, 185 G. I have so often heard of inventions Avlrich were to "revolutionise artificial lighting" and the revolution lias Ueeu so , , ]on« coining off, that it was witliont feelings of undue elation that I trotted down last night to inspect Mr Hooker's new lHit at Mr Wellwood's rooms. . "When I got there 1 found a strong muster of the cognoscenti assembled jound a very simple apparatus consisting of an oil-drum,' a small gasometer, a pair of hellows, and overhead three burners, living out a steady white light which lighted up the whole room. The oil-drum, ■which, /constitutes the generator, communicates uy pipes with the bellows on one side and the gasometer on the other. Air. is forced by the bellows into and through benzine in the generator, and the resulting vapour passes thence to the "aspmeter, and so through pipes to burners niatle of platinum wire gauze, which, on becoming incandescent, give out an .intense white light, which, _ although very penetrating, is in my opinion less trying' to the-oyes than tho electric light. As for the' ordinary jumping, flickering,' evil-smelling gas jet, it_ is not to be mentioned in the same Any with the new light, tfho pipes in connection with the generator are furnished with taps, by jpeans of which the communication between the bellows and the generator, and between the latter and the gasometer, can be 'regulated or cut off at pleasure. By closing these taps and opening an intermediate tap the quantity of air required for admixture with tho benzine-air-gas may be forced into the gasometer. The cost of the gas is less than Is per 1000 feet. The gas is absolutely safe, there being no danger of explosion. It requires neither retorts, furnaces, nor "dynamos." The apparatus can be applied to .a single building at a cost of a few-pounds, or on a larger scale to the lighting of a town, the gas being in that case conducted through mains in the usual ■Tasked the inventor if the gas could be applied to cooking purposes, either in a «ns stoveor a Itippingill oil stove, aud ho replied that ifc could at a trilling cost. This I consider an important advantage, as although the Rippingill stove is very handy cooking by, it costs with keresene rather, more than cooking by a Leamington with wood or coal, whereas the cost of cooking by the Hooker gas, used with the' Ripjmigill stove, would be so much less as in the majority of cases to superBede the ordinary modes. ■The experiment last night certainly justifies the opinion of the experts that a " hrilliaut" future is in store for the new