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17
REPORT OF MR. HEISCH.
Cm* Gas Examiner's Office,
8, Savage Gardens, E.C.,
November 4th, 1874.
To the Lewisham District Board of Works.
Gentlemen,
I have carefully considered the various documents transmitted
to me by your orders concerning the Sulphur in the
Phoenix Gas, and beg to report thereon as follows:—
I would first remark that the lecture of Dr. Odling is of
somewhat old date; and that in a lecture delivered before the
Association of Gas Managers some years later on a kindred
subject as the one sent you, none of the statements therein
contained are re-produced. The outline of Mr. Keates'
evidence is mainly taken from a paper written by him many
years ago, when he was Consulting Chemist to the City of
London Gas Works. Mr. "Wills was for some time Dr.
Odling's Assistant, and what he says is mostly a copy of Dr.
Odling's statements.
The subject may be considered under three heads:—
1st—Is an excess of sulphur injurious?
2nd—Can the sulphur be removed ?
3rd—Will its removal create a nuisance?
1st.—The evidence of Dr. Odling, Mr. Keates, and Mr.
Wills, is, for all practical purposes, the same, and is founded
on an error which would have been exposed by a few minutes'
cross-examination bv a well-instructed counsel.
All three gentlemen speak of the result of the combustion
of the sulphur in gas as sulphurous acid gas. When sulphur
is burnt in dry air, or dry oxygen, this gas is produced, but
when burnt even in a slightly moist atmosphere, part is converted
into sulphuric acid, and when burnt with a large