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By [SHOWARD SALMON.

AS has bhecome so universal an agent of illumination, and cnters so o considerably o the domestic cconomy of the world to-day, that 1t 15 seme- what surprising to remember the present year is the centenary of the dis- covery of the practicability of utilizing it for

all sorts of purposes, from the lighting of

the highway and the home, to the cooking of the dinner on a day when it is convenient to do without a coal five,

Natural gas, which was spoken ol as “spirit,” and was more or less ol asmystery, had been known for centuries, and 1s even said to have been used mo China as an illuminant long before 1t was turned o account in Europe. In many plices natural cas forced itsell up through fissures in the carth, became ignited and burned meessantly, to the terror, no doubt, of some good people. who thought the flame came from Tades 1tselt.

Some time towards the ond of the seventeenth century @ well in the neighbour- hood of Warrington was found to contain inflammable air, and it 1s believed that the result of the application of a lighted candle to the mouth of this well suguested to the Rev. Dr. John Clavton the idea of making experiments in coal distillation, that 15, m the heating of coal until the gas is forced out

of it e placed some coal moan ron or brick receptacle called w retort, with an aperture through which the gas escaped when distillation, or carbonization, coni- menced. Dro Clayton describes how at first there came steam, then a black otly, and then @ spirit, the Tast of course being gas. He had no notion what to do with 1t; and was surprised to find that as it issued from the retort it caught fire ona light bemg applied to it Te filled some bladders with it, and when he wished to divert his friends, pricked a hole in one ol these bladders, pressed the sides slichthvy and lighted the gas. Infimite amusc- ment is o osaid to have been derived from watching the “spirit” gradually burn atself out.

[t is strange that, though Dr. Clavton thus came about the year 10go so near to it the discovery ol gas i the form m which we know 1t to-dav was not made for another century ull 17920 when William Murdoch, an eneineer in Redruth, Cornwally concerved the dea.

Certain impurities 1 the gas as 1t leaves the retort were the stumbling-block to procress. \fter some experimenting, Murdoch ~uccecded in removing them sufficiently to enable him to startle the Redruthians by lohting his own premisces with gas before the close ol 1792, Murdoch was one of the world's truly great men, and an excellent

Vol iv —6u,