. Pacific Gas and Electric magazine. Fig. 2When viewed in the light of present know-ledge, it is easy to criticize and blame thepioneers of the gas business for not immedi-ately availing themselves of new and betterways of doing things, but it would be like i) IT The Manufacture of Coal Gas censuring Moses for taking forty years totravel over a road which can now be coveredin a few hours in a modern Iron retorts had a life in service of onlytwelve months, and it was known that a clayretort would last thirty working months, butiron retorts were gas tight, and clay retortswere porou
. Pacific Gas and Electric magazine. Fig. 2When viewed in the light of present know-ledge, it is easy to criticize and blame thepioneers of the gas business for not immedi-ately availing themselves of new and betterways of doing things, but it would be like i) IT The Manufacture of Coal Gas censuring Moses for taking forty years totravel over a road which can now be coveredin a few hours in a modern Iron retorts had a life in service of onlytwelve months, and it was known that a clayretort would last thirty working months, butiron retorts were gas tight, and clay retortswere porous and leaked gas into the was a heavy back pressure on the re-torts, due to the gas forcing its own way outof the retorts and breaking the seal in the hy-draulic main. This necessity caused the in-vention of the gas exhauster, a rotary pumpconnected to the outlet of the hydraulic mainand operated for the purpose of quickly draw-ing away the gas from the retort as soon asit was generated, and reducing the pressurewithin the retort to nearly that of the atmos-phere. This, together with a newly dis-covered method of salt glazing the insidesurfaces of clay retorts, effectually stoppedthe leakage of gas and removed the most seri-ous objection to the use of them. There was one objection not so easilyovercome—iron retorts might be heated andcooled again at will, but the clay retorts,while capabl
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Keywords: ., bookauthorpacificgasandelectric, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900
