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75
knowing that the quantity of gas for which they pay is really
consumed in the street lamps.
The only complaint connected with gas that came to my
knowledge related to a nuisance arising out of the parish, viz., at
the works of the Gas Light and Coke Company, formerly belonging
to the Imperial Gas Company, and situated in the parish
of Fulham. Numerous parishioners complained in the month
of October of very offensive smells proceeding from these works,
and by desire of your Yestry I investigated the matter, and
reported thereon in November, the resident engineer at the
works having given me every facility in the course of my
enquiry.
Without going into unnecessary and technical details, it may
be stated that the cause of the offensive smell was the "lime
process" by which gas is purified from excess of sulphur compounds.
The "Gas Referees" have prescribed a maximum of
impurity to be allowed, and for the winter months this, as before
stated, is fixed at 25 grains of sulphur in 100 cubic feet of gas.
The required degree of purity cannot be attained, in the present state
of chemical knowledge, without the use of lime, and it is said
that the lime process cannot be employed without creating
nuisance. The nuisance arises when the covers of the purifiers
are removed for changing the fouled lime which becomes charged
with the sulphur and other compounds, and is very offensive.
The principal ingredients in the nuisance are a gas, sulphuretted
hydrogen; and a heavy vapour, bisulphide of carbon. The sulphuretted
hydrogen is removed by passing the gas through
hydrated peroxide of iron; but no practical means are known
of dealing with the whole of the bisulphide, some of which therefore
is allowed to escape into the open air at the highest point of the
works. A less efficient mode of purification than the lime process is
that by the oxide of iron. The effect of substituting it for
the other would be an increase of about 10 grains of sulphur
in the 100 cubic feet of gas. It is a question of evils, no
doubt, but I am of opinion it would be better to have more sul-.
phur left in the gas, even to be burnt in our houses, practically,
into sulphuric acid, than that the air should be poisoned by so
foul a stench—if this were an inevitable result. As the
Company have another manufactory at Kensal Green (in
this parish), it is right to observe that no complaint had been received
from that quarter. The lime process is in partial use
there, and the amount of sulphur impurity during the year
never exceeded 18 grains in 100 cubic feet. At these works,
however, the purifiers are in an enclosed building, the site of the
works is elevated, and the supply of gas to the district is supplemented
by a 24-inch main from Beckton. The Fulham works
on the other hand, lie low, the purifiers, which were being increased