View report page

18
quantity of hydrogen (as in coal gas), the oxidation of which
produces water in large quantities, the amount of sulphurous
acid formed is quite insignificant, nearly all the sulphur being
converted into sulphuric acid, not a gas but a vapour, readily
condensed on all the walls of, and articles contained in, a
room, and most difficult to remove, even by a strong draught
through the room, much less by the ordinary means of ventilation.
Even if the sulphur, as it issues from the burner,
were in the state of sulphurous acid, in the presence of the
quantity of water simultaneously formed, it would be
oxidized into sulphuric acid long before it could be removed
from the room, and the corrosive and destructive effects thus
go on accumulating. That such is the fact the experience of
everyone who notices the effect of burning gas on metal
articles, plants, &c., abundantly proves. Let me now set
against the statements of Messrs. Odling, Keates, and Wills,
the following statement of what experience proves to be the
fact. Each grain of sulphur in burning, as it does in gas,
gives rise to the production of just over three grains of
sulphuric acid. 100 cubic feet of gas, if it contain 30 grains
of sulphur(a very common amount), would in burning produce
90 grains of sulphuric acid, and three burners each burning
4 cubic feet per hour, would produce between 3 and 4 grains
of sulphuric acid per hour, or about 20 grains in 6 hours,
which would in great part be condensed oil the contents of
the room in which the gas is burned. Such a process repeated
every day fully accounts for the destruction which occurs
when gas is burned. I may remark, in passing, that carbonic
acid and water are both as much produced by any other light
(oil lamps for instance) as by gas light, yet the same destructive
effects are not produced. Anyone who will take the
trouble to examine the corrosion occurring on metal-work
where gas is burnt will find it to consist of sulphate of the
metal. All tradesmen are only too well acquainted with the
rotting effects produced by gas on their goods. One most
instructive instance in proof of the above assertion I may
mention. Some years since gas was introduced at the Royal