View report page

10
The document containing the opinions mentioned, as
received from the Company, and also the copy of the Gas
Journal mentioned, are sent herewith.
Copy Document Referred to forwarded by the
Company to the Board on the 20th August, 1874.
Dr. Odling, in his lecture delivered to the Metropolitan
Association of Medical Officers of Health, says : *
"Now let us consider the injurious effects likely to arise
from the sulphurous acid so produced. The Act of Parliament
says that coal gas shall not contain more than 20
grains of sulphur absolutely, and we find that—estimating
it from the amount of sulphurous acid produced—it does not
contain more than that quantity, although, estimating it
according to the absolute amount of sulphur, it does contain
more. What is the absolute amount ordinarily contained
in coal gas I cannot tell you, although it certainly exceeds
20, and I believe even 25 grains in the 100 cubic feet; but
we will make a very liberal assumption.
"We will assume that coal gas habitually contains 40
grains of sulphur in 100 cubic feet, and then consider how
much sulphurous acid that amount of sulphur will produce.
Sulphurous acid consists ot exactly half its weight of
sulphur, therefore, if the whole of these 40 grains were
completely burnt, we should have 80 grains of sulphurous
acid, but in reality a proportion of the 40 grains would
not e so burnt. This 80 grains of sulphurous acid gas,
owever, corresponds to a little over the l-15th part of a
cubic foot, so that as 100 of gas, on the assumption we
have made would yield us l-15th of a cubic foot, 1,500
feet of coal gas would be required to yield us one cubic foot
of sulphurous acid; but when we burn 1,500 feet of coal
gas we produce something also besides sulphurous acid—
* Note.- Dr. Odling's Lecture here quoted was delivered in January, 1869
In th Appendix, p. 22, a further part of it is given, affecting the question of
Sulpur, not included in the Extract furnished by the Company.