Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1883 — Gas and Electricity. [ARTICLE]

Gas and Electricity.

When electricity was first successfully used for illuminating purposes there was a great fall in the price of gas stocks in all the large cities of the civilized world. There has been a recovery since then, and it really seems that Dr. Siemens was right when he claimed that the use of gas would increase, notwithstanding the employment of the electric light. He expressed the opinion that the. latter can never be used economically in the household. Bat gas, he said, would take the place of coal for heating and cooking purposes, and this prediction is being partially verified. We are noiV premised a revolution by the use of petroleum to produce gas which gives out'an intense heat. A patent has been taken out in every civilized country for the production of. a gas by some combination of Eetroleum with lime. • The companies ave been formed, and it is said that within a short time, and by the pipes used for carrying ordinary gas, that burning material will be introduced into our households winch will-beat our rooms and cook our food, at one-third of the cost now necessitated by the use of coal or wood. The recent speculative excitement in petroleum is said to be due to the practical application of this patent by some of our gas companies. Petroleum has never commanded a fair price in view of its production in excess of the demands of the consumers. Our wells have pumped out about 27,000,000 barrels per annum, but heretofore the world has been searched in .vain for a market for this ocean ’of mineral oil. Should we make use of it, however, for a heat-producing and cooking gas, there will be an abundant demand for all the petroleqjn we could produce. It would add marvelously to human comfort if so bulky a product as coal could be dispensed with, and our dwellings warmed by a cleanly and comparatively inexpensive gas.— Demoreet’e Monthly.