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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
119
Always
ready
to
turn
his
inventive
genius
in
any
direction,
the
introduction
of
the
electric
light,
which
had
given
an
impetus
to
improvement
in
the
methods
of
utilising
gas,
led
him
to
design
a
regenerative
gas
lamp,
which
is
now
employed
on
a
small
scale
in
this
country,
either
for
street
lighting
or
in
class-rooms
and
public
halls.
In
this
burner,
as
in
the
regenerative
furnace,
the
products
of
combustion
are
made
to
warm
up
the
air
and
gas
which
go
to
feed
the
flame,
and
the
effect
is
a
full
and
brilliant
light
with
some
economy
of
fuel.
The
use
of
coal-gas
for
heating
purposes
was
another
subject
which
he
took
up
with
characteristic
earnestness,
and
he
advocated
for
a
time
the
use
of
gas
stoves
and
fires
in
preference
to
those
which
burn
coal,
not
only
on
account
of
their
cleanliness
and
convenience,
but
on
the
score
of
preventing
fogs
in
great
cities,
by
checking
the
discharge
of
smoke
into
the
atmosphere.
He
designed
a
regenerative
gas
and
coke
fireplace,
in
which
the
ingoing
air
was
warmed
by
heat
conducted
from
the
back
part
of
the
grate;
and
by
practical
trials
in
his
own
office,
calculated
the
economy
of
the
system.
The
interest
in
this
question,
however,
died
away
after
the
close
of
the
Smoke
Abatement
Exhibition;
and
the
experiments
of
Mr.
Aiken,
of
Edinburgh,
showed
how
futile
was
the
hope
that
gas
fires
would
prevent
fogs
altogether.
They
might
indeed
ameliorate
the
noxious
character
of
a
fog
by
checking
the
discharge
of
soot
into
the
atmosphere;
but
Mr.
Aiken's
experiments
showed
that
particles
of
gas
were
in
themselves
capable
of
condensing
the
moisture
of
the
air
upon
them.
The
great
scheme
of
Siemens
for
making
London
a
smokeless
city,
by
manufacturing
gas
at
the
coal-pit
and
leading
it
in
pipes
from
street
to
street,
would
not
have
rendered
it
altogether
a
fogless
one,
though
the
coke
and
gas
fires
would
certainly
have
reduced
the
quantity
of
soot
launched
into
the
air.
Siemens's
scheme
was
rejected
by
a
Committee
of
the
House
of
Lords
on
the
somewhat
mistaken
ground
that
if
the
plan
were
as
profitable
as
Siemens
supposed,
it
would
have
been
put
in
practice
long
ago
by
private
enterprise.
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