GAS FOR MANY USES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5089, 29 July 1895, Page 3

GAS FOR MANY USES.

PRACTICAL TESTS OF A NEW DISCOVERY. The Sun Francisco Chronicle says: —" Gas is about to drive out ice as ■Refrigerating agent, and gas is to lpfeipplied to citizens through pipes. For live years E, F. Osborne has been experimenting with carbon dioxide and has been so successful that a company has been incorporated to make its use practical from a commercial point of view. The gas is also effective as a preserving agent and in the extinguishing of fires. In explaining his theories recently | Mr Osborne dropped some blazing brands into a large vessel filled with gas. Before the brands had touched tlio bottom of the vessel the flames were extinguished. A smaller vessel was filled with gas, a candle was lighted and the invisible and odorless contents of the vessel were poured over the caudle. The flame was extinguished, the wick not smouldering an instant. " So much for carbon dioxide as a fire extinguisher," said Mr Osborne, "see now what it can do as a refrigerating medium." He then placed the thermometer in a champagne cooler, which was encircled with a coil of pipes. When placed in the which contained no ice, the iuermometer marked 75 degrees, the temperature of the room. The gas was allowed to enter the cooler by a system of pipes connecting with a metal cask. In four minutes the thermometer was removed, It marked 30 degress below zero, Fahrenheit, " Allowing the thermometer to remain two minutes longer we could have made it mark 60 • degrees below zero," said Mr Osborne. "Pipe-line refrigeration has come to slay and will displace the use of • ice for nearly all purposes for which it is now employed. Carbon dioxide, which we shall pipe from the place of manufacture to the house, hotel, saloon orrestaurantofthe consumer, is a neutral gas, comparatively harmless, as it is a necessary constituent of many articles of food and drink, It is odorless and neither inflammable, corrosive nor explosive, and in a few minutes will produce a temperature of 100 degrees below zero. It is tlio best preservative of woollen goods and furs known, keeping them from the ravages of insects and wrms without giving them any Itcanbe used advantageously for sewing machines, fans, ice-cream freezers and sausage machines. " One ton of good soft coal and tlireo and a half tons of limestone will produce little more than 3500 pounds of lime, 13,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, six to seven gallons of coal tar, and forty to fifty pounds of ammonia, In addition to producing carbon dioxide gas, wo can produce a first-class illuminating and fuel gas, and we can furnish such gas for 75 cents per thousand feet, . " To preserve meats without refrigerating, carb'on is blown on tho meat in a kind of spray, and lias no deleterious elfecton the food product except milk, which it sours, In the re£rigerating-car service gas would be carried in tanks, the tanks being filled at stations located 500 to 1000 ■ milesapart, " TheWaukegan Pipeline Service Company will supply gas to that suburb in a few weeks, and later it •wjjfcbe supplied to Chicago in pipes other gas, doing away with ice, refrigerator and lire extinguishers, The cost will bo about one-quarter of that of ice and the effectiveness many times greater."