GASWORKS MAGIC

Hokitika Guardian, 28 August 1926, Page 4

GASWORKS MAGIC

A BY-PRODUCT LIKE SUGAR CANDY. LONDON, July 9. For several hours on Saturday the King and Queen toured the Gas Light and Coke Company’s works at Beckton, East Ham, and watched the process of gas manufacture from beginning to end. To do this they braved the fierce heat of the retorts in which the coal is

“ linked.” travelling along a railway running through miles of coal-dumps, and examined various poisonous chemicals.

In a great building full of the glare from scores of retorts they were handed pieces of blue glass to protect their eyes, and they saw through these one of the retorts emptied of coke and recharged with coal. During this operation the retort was uncovered and they gazed into what might have been the mouth of a .miniature volcano on the point of eruption.

The Queen was fascinated, and, bent on getting as close a view as possible, she reached the side of M r ML J. Lambourn. who in flannel singlet and wielding a long rake with thickly gloved hands, stood tending the blazing oven. The fiery gusts of heat came full upon her where she stood, and the intense glare of the open furnace falling on the grey dress she wore seemed to transform her into a figure of flame. But she smiled calmly to the perspiring workman beside her. “Rather hot work in the summer, isn’t it ” she observed. “ You’re right there, your Majesty.” he replied, laughing. GOLDEN ICICLES. During the inspection of by-products the King and Queen were shown a pit overhung with what appeared to he golden icicles. “How perfectly lovely!” the Queen exclaimed. “What is it?” She was told that the by-product was prussiate of potash, “ MTiy.” she laughed, “it looks for all the world, like sugar-candy!’’

The royal visitors passed into what resembled a cavern of snow. The floor was covered and the walls and ceiling were nowdered with naphthaline recently condensed—and outside a

machine was vapidly converting this dazzling substance into homely “mothballs.”'

In a laboratory the King and Queen saw the device in bright scarlet of a crown surmounted by the loners G.R-.

appear as though by magie on a piece of cloth. This was produced by a dveproduct called beta-naplithol used with a stencil. A NEW PLANT. As a prelude to the tour flic King, by pulling a. lever, put into action new coal-handling plant, and watched with interest as it scooped out tons of coal from a ship lying beside the pier on which the machinery is mounted. At the company’s sports ground in East Ham the King and Queen planted young poplar trees in memory of their visit.