TRADING THROUGH TUBES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12588, 24 August 1901, Page 4

TRADING THROUGH TUBES.

. (St James's Budget.) Long before the x marvels of the Twopenny Tube burst upon a, startled metropolis, the problem of tube transit, for mercantile purposes bad taken serious hold upon practical engineers. > * Its latest development is‘not the least startling. It has been suggested by Mr Baynes Badcock that our gas should be manufactured under municipal auspices at the pit’s mouth, and brought through, long pipes straight from the coalfields to the consumer. The effect of such a measure, which has received the: warmest support of several prominent authorities,-would be most far reaching. As most folks became lamentably aware during the recent coal crisis, the cost of both coal and gas is increased to an altogether ridiculous extent between the pit’s mouth and the gas 'stove or gas jet of the consumers. Only last year the rise in the price of coal formed the pretext fon charging London £750,000 extra upon its gas bill. But the actual extra cost of the coal to the companies was merely £250,000. What became of that half-million? Railway rates, coal merchants, gas companies, and the like all have to be satisfied out of the pocket of the unfortunate consumer. It is he who always pays the piper, and be should therefore' especially welcome Mr Badcock’s scheme. Once London gets really cheap gas, the coal fire will be entirely superseded by the gas stove for cooking purposes ; and the £6,000,000 that London annually spends upon “ smoke,” with its attendant horrors of black fog and grim soot, will be DIVFRTED INTO MORE USEFUL CHANNELS. Some five years ago an equally ambitious tube was proposed by the London Sea Water Supply Company, which proposed do run a huge pipe from Worthing to the

Metropolis for the purpose of providing Londoners with the luxury of a sea-bath at home. Incidentally it was anticipated that the spariding fluid would be used for many* other purposes, such as street watering, sewer flushing, etc., for which it is wasteful to employ good drinking water. The water was to be pumped into high! reservoirs, and allowed to flow thence,by tht force of gravitation. ‘iaSfe W.'b*’ some half a.dozen of these htige tabfes between Worthing and Londbri, the neatest to the Metropolis being. plabed high lift on Epsom Downs. Had the tchbftlb W' in Working order during the parching days ol last summer its promoters must have reaped a golden harvest. As at is, however, Londoners who' want their morning dip in ’the brinv nitisfc still hie them to Southend or Brighton, for the Worthing Tube has not yet been made. For a great number of years the excellent petroleum, obtained from the Baku wello on the Cakpiim Sea was largely transported by road to Batdum, on the Black Sea, '* whence it Whs ihipjped to England todi the rest of Europe. The route employed, lay via the 140-mile-long Gorgian military road, and as this road climbs over the Caucasus at a height of 7000 feet, it was frequently iinpnsshhlc in winter owing tq( the heavy snowfall. Needless to say, THIS MADE RUSSIAN OIL VERT DEAR, To-day the tedious old road route bas been largely supplanted by a length of steel tube. It is of eight-inch section, and waS made ih Russia at a coteb of 8s it foot, notwithstanding that a Yankee flfin tendered as low 1 as 3s a fobt. Thifc is Hovermncnis protection, with a vengeance. The tube is sunk a foot below the surface of the railway line (which runs from Michaelovo to Batoum, round the eastern end of the Caucasus), and it is possible to pump through it at the rate of 48,000 gallons an hour. In actual practice the oil is carried in tank cars over the 418 miles separating Baku and Michaelovo. Here it is discharged into reservoir tanks, • whence it is ptitnped through to BatoUna via the petrtdbUnS tube. The tube system of despatch is equally invaluable for mail purposes. A- few months back the old mail tunnel between) the G.P.O. and Euston was accidentally unearthed, attd this has led to a muchneeded reconsideration 'of the advantages of the pneumatic tube system. Probably the best of these tubular systems is that known as the Batchellier, by means of which 24001 b 6f letters dto .ba readily handled daily in ohe-nlnth of the time occupied by the cumbersome mail tan collections. The idea of the Batoum. tube was cribbed from America, which- is the homo of tube transport, the oil tubes of the Standard Oil Company being models of rapid and efficient working. The headquarters of this remarkable combination lie in the valley of the Alleghany River, between Bradford Field and Pittsburg, which literally reeks With crude petroleum, and the oil is pufflpId thence through underground pipes to the nearest ports where it CAN BE STOWED ABOARD SHIP. In this way three tubes of between 200 and 300 miles in length radiate to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York; one tube of 70 miles runs ,to Buffalo, fIM another, 100 miles in length, to Cleveland oft Luke Erie, Here it loads, the Lake steamers, which bear the oil to Chicago and the Far West. There are, too, divers Other shorter tubes spouting in all directions. It is owing largely to the wonderful reduction in freightage, duo to the tube system of conveying the oil, that the Standard Company is whttt it is. To-day this oc-topus-like combination possesses 25,000 hands,, 200 steamers, 30,000 miles of railroad, 25,000 miles of oil pipes, 3000 oil tank cars, i 7000 waggons, and‘ other things in. proportion. Above it all towers that modem colosSUS, John Rockefeller, with! his colossal fortune of £50,000,000, most of which has been won by means of his unique method of trading through tubes.