In an iron mill of thirty furnaces, running
eight heats each for twenty-four hours, this would make a difference in
favor of the gas of, say, 8 x 30 x 25 = 6,000 pounds of iron per day.
This is an important item of itself, leaving out the cost of firing with
coal and hauling ashes.
For generating steam in large establishments, one man will attend
a battery of twelve or twenty boilers, using gas as fuel, keep the
pressure uniform, and have the fire room clean as a parlor. For burning
brick and earthenware, gas offers the double advantage of freedom from
smoke and a uniform heat. The use of gas in public bakeries promises the
abolition of the ash-box and its accumulation of miscellaneous filth,
which is said to often impregnate the "sponge" with impurities.
In short, the advantages of natural gas as a fuel are so obvious to
those who have given it a trial, that the prediction is made that,
should the supply fail, many who are now using it will never return to
the consumption of crude coal in factories, but, if necessary, convert
it or petroleum into gas at their own works.
It seems, indeed, that until we shall have acquired the wisdom enabling
us to conserve and concentrate the heat of the sun, gas must be the fuel
of the future.
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