Excerpt from Gas Manufacture and Lighting: A Course of Five LecturesSoho, Birmingham. Ten years after Murdoch's practical experiment in Cornwall, Lebon, a French engineer, gave the first public display of gas-lighting in France, he also having lighted his house in Paris with this illuminant. January of 1804 saw the arrival of Winsor, who delivered many lectures which helped to bring forward the merits of gas-lighting. He, however, had only a very superficial knowledge of his subject, and many of his statements were erroneous. However, there is no doubt that to him is due largely the beginning of the London Gas Companies, more especially that huge concern now known as the Gas Light Coke Company. Murdoch read papers before the Royal Society of London, and was awarded the Society's gold medal. He was also the inventor of the first motor-car. From about 1812 onwards gas companies were started in many parts of the country, until now almost every village even can boast of its gas manufactory. It might be interesting to mention that the Edinburgh Gas Company was established in 1817 with a Mr. Grafton as its consulting engineer.The first gas pipes were fixed some distance from the walls of the houses, as architects insisted that they must be hot.When°the first gas-holders were put up, they had to be enclosed in houses, and one of such houses is still to be found at Musselburgh Gas Works with the beams inside for the counterbalance weights, although it is now used as a coal store. The Royal Society of London recommended that these gas-holders should be limited in size to 6000 cub. Ft. (they are now made as big as cub. It was tried to convince these worthy scientists that there was no danger, by making a hole in the side of a gas-holder and lighting the issuing gas, and although no explosion occurred, they were still op posed to any increase in size.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.