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Show GAS COMBUSTION In experiments which lead to the discovery of the miner's lamp, Sir Humphry Davcy noticed that if a piece of wire gauze was held a little above a gas jet, and the gas lighted above the gauze, it would burn as a non luminous flame and deposit no carbon. car-bon. Little or no practical application has been made of such a flame until Germany's great chemist, Bunsen, was called upon to devise heating apparatus for his new laboratories at Heidelberg. Then Sir Henry Roscoe, one of Bunsen 's assistants vho had been a student of Davey, brought to Bunsen 's attention the blue flame above the wire gauze. .From such a hint Bunsen 's great mind evolved the burner which in one form or another is still called by his name. The gas we bum is not a simple substance, but a complex mixture of several elements forming various gases. .Some nitrogen, nitro-gen, oxygen and a little sulphur may be present in illuminating gas, but the only parts that are useful for light and heat are the hydrogen and its various compounds with carbon known as hydrocarbons. hy-drocarbons. . Carbon is a common element. It comprises about one-half of wood, from 80 to 95 per cent of coal, the greater part of graphite and lampblack, and is found pure in the diamond. Smoke and soot are impure forms of oily carbon. It is the rapid chemical combination of the illuminating gas with oxygen, evolving the carbonic acid gas and watery vapor, that produces light and heat, the light in the flat flame burner depending upon the minute particles of solid matter in the flame, and the intensity of the heat depending upon the rapidity with which the combinations take place.. A. log rotting in the forest gives off the same total amount of heat as if burned in a furnace. A foot of gas," with perfect combustion, gives alway3 the same to-tal to-tal amount of heat, whether as a luminous or non-luminous flame. When sufficient air is admitted through the gas stove burner, no soot is produced and the cooking utensih remain bright and clean, but when there is not air enough, some carbon or soot is deposited on the bottom of the kettle because there is not oxygen enough to burn all the carbon in the gas. If the burners pop when you light them, it is because you light them too soon after turning on the gas. Turn on the burner and then light your match, this will prevent the gas from lighting back and popping. It i3 always best to open the oven door before lighting the oven burners, in the event that the burners might not have been tightly closed when previously used. Nothing so nice as a well managed gas stove. UTAH LIGHT & RAILWAY COMPANY. ' " r ' ' D. Decker, Local Manager. |